■Infant mortality rate:the number of deaths of infants under 1 year of age per
1,000 live births in a given year.
■Maternal mortality rate:the number of deaths of pregnant or new mothers either
before, during, or immediate following childbirth, per 1,000 births in a given year.
■Chronic diseases:long-term or life long diseases that develop gradually or are
present at birth (rates are calculated in proportion to the population—number
per 1,000, 100,000, or 1 million).
■Acute diseases:diseases that strike suddenly and may cause severe illness, inca-
pacitation, or even death.
■Infectious diseases:diseases that are caused by infectious agents such as viruses
or bacteria.Age and Health.Our health changes as we age. Not only does our general health
decline, but our susceptibility to various illnesses shifts. For example, men aged 25
to 44 are twice as likely to die of HIV or unintentional injuries than they are to die
of heart disease or cancer. By age 45 to 64, though, these two leading causes of
death for young men barely scratch the surface, and heart disease and cancer are
about 20 times more likely to be the cause of death.
Breakthroughs in medical technologies and treatments, as well as increased atten-
tion paid to health, mean that life expectancy will continue to increase at roughly
the same rate as today. As our population gradually ages, the divisions between the
“young old” and the “old old” will sharpen, and people will come to expect to live
into their 80s and 90s as a matter of course. The burden of health care will fall
disproportionately on the younger members of society.Race, Class, and Health.In the United States and throughout the world, the
wealthier you are, the healthier you are. People in more developed countries live
longer and healthier lives, and in every country, the wealthy live longer and
healthier lives. Of course, wealthy people are not immune to illness simply because
they are wealthy. But they have better nutrition, better access to better-quality
health care, and better standards of living—and these all lead to healthier lives.
Just as being wealthy is a good predictor of being healthy, so too is being poor a
good predictor of being ill. Lower-class people work in more dangerous and hazardous
jobs, with fewer health insurance benefits, and often live in neighborhoods or in hous-
ing that endangers health (peeling lead-based paint, exposed and leaky pipes that
attract disease-bearing rodents or insects, unsanitary water and food supplies, for
example). Stated most simply, inequality kills.
In the United States, men with fewer than 12 years of education (a broad meas-
ure of class position) are more than twice as likely to die of chronic ailments such as
heart disease and almost twice as likely to die of communicable diseases than those
with 13 or more years of education. Women with family income under $10,000 per
year are three times more likely to die of heart disease and nearly three times as likely
to die of diabetes than those with incomes above $25,000. White men earning less
than $10,000 a year are 1.5 times more likely to die prematurely as those earning
$34,000 of more (Isaacs, 2004).
Poor urban Blacks have the worst health of any ethnic group in the United
States, with the possible exception of Native Americans. One-third of all poor Black
16-year-old girls in urban areas will not reach their sixty-fifth birthdays. High rates
of heart disease, cancer, and cirrhosis of the liver make African American men in
Harlem less likely to reach age 65 than men in Bangladesh (Epstein, 2003). Lati-
nos die of several leading causes of death at far higher rates than do Whites, includ-
ing liver disease, diabetes, and HIV. Racism itself is harmful to health: The stress534 CHAPTER 16THE BODY AND SOCIETY: HEALTH AND ILLNESS