Live Thursday - The Effects of Health and Poverty on Education

Join me Thursday, January 31st, for a live and interactive FutureofEducation.com conversation with Stephen Bezruchka, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Health Services, the School of Public Health at the University of Washington.

A recent set of widely-reported studies are highlighting statistics that don't surprise Stephen, but are shocking to those previously unfamiliar with their findings. The National Research Council and Institute of Medicine's U.S. Health in International Perspective found that U.S. citizens suffer from poorer health than nearly all other industrialized countries, and of the 17 high-income countries looked at, the United States is at or near the bottom in at least nine indicators--including infant mortality, heart and lung disease, sexually transmitted infections, and adolescent pregnancies, as well as more systemic issues such as injuries, homicides, and rates of disability. In Differences In Life Expectancy Due To Race And Educational Differences Are Widening, And Many May Not Catch Up, researchers found that when "race and education are combined, the disparity is even more striking. In 2008 white US men and women with 16 years or more of schooling had life expectancies far greater than black Americans with fewer than 12 years of education—14.2 years more for white men than black men, and 10.3 years more for white women than black women."

Stephen and I will discuss the connections between education and the poverty and health outcomes from these and other reports, and why they are unfamiliar to most, given the similar documentation over many years. Hopefully we'll also get a chance to explore the role of institutions in masking or redirecting attention away from these issues (see my recent post on rethinking education reform in light of institutionalization), the effects of inequality as a deeper story, early-life impact on health, the catch-22 of compliance-driven schooling when dealing with scientific and social problems, and ultimately what we can do with this information.

Special thanks to Craig Seasholes for connecting me with Stephen.

Date: Thursday, January 31st, 2013
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate). Log in at http://www.futureofed.info. The Blackboard Collaborate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Blackboard Collaborate, please visit the support and configuration page.
Recording:  A full Blackboard Collaborate recording is at https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2013-01-31.1720.M.9E9FE58134BE68C3B413F24B3586CF.vcr&sid=2008350 and an audio mp3 recording is at http://audio.edtechlive.com/foe/bezruchka.mp3.
Mightybell:  A Mightybell space with interview resources and conversation is at https://mightybell.com/spaces/21414.

Stephen A. Bezruchka is Senior Lecturer, Global Health, Department of Health Services, the School of Public Health at the University of Washington. Stephen also works with the Department of Global Health MPH program. He has spent over 10 years in Nepal working in various health programs, and teaching in remote regions. He tries to draw attention to the socioeconomic determinants of the health of populations.  His research interests include: effective methods of disseminating determinants of population health to the general population so they work to change societal structures to improve America's health; theories of global health asking the question why do countries order by health outcomes such as life expectancy in the Health Olympics?; medical harm and the lack of interest in the USA for responding to this marked health risk; medical tourism and its affect on host populations