It looks like the best health care reform for Americans might be jobs, jobs, jobs.
A new Gallup Poll reveals that underemployed Americans suffer from bad health at twice the rate of their employed counterparts. The term "underemployed" is used to describe Americans who work part time and would like to work full time. It does not include unemployed Americans or part-time employees who aren't seeking full time work.
Almost 40,000 Americans over the age of 18 were randomly sampled via telephone interviews. Of the pollees, 22% of the underemployed said they were in fair or poor health, compared to only 11% of the employed. Furthermore, only 46% of the underemployed said they were in excellent or very good health, whereas 60% of the employed reported excellent health. As a result, the underemployed miss twice as many days of usual activity than the employed.
Stress seems to be an obvious factor, and it's slightly backed up by the 16% of underemployed who reported having a headache the previous day. What's not so clear is why underemployed Americans tend to suffer from more physical pain than the employed. In the past 12 months, 25% of the underemployed said they suffered from recurring pain due to a knee or leg injury, and 32% said they suffered from recurring neck or back pain. Both results were six percentage points higher than the employed, and 24% of underemployed said they experienced A LOT of physical pain the previous day.
It's not certain whether being underemployed leads to bad health or that bad health leads to being underemployed. What is certain is that stress from work-related activities affects your body as well as your mind, and having a low income may be one of the lesser worries for the underemployed.
Comments
We need jobs, jobs, jobs!
Maybe it's simply that many of those who are working part time aren't eligible for health benefits through their employers, so they aren't as likely to be able to afford to visit a doctor as those who are employed full time.
When you are fully employed, even if you hate your job, if you feel responsible to get the job done, you are too busy to notice minor ailments. It's kind of like when you cut yourself and don't feel any pain until someone says "Look man, your bleeding!" On the other hand, when you have too much time on your hands, those ailments become your whole world and you start to wonder whether your moles are turning cancerous.
Wow, no there is a scary thought dude.
Lou
www.web-privacy.at.tc
Maybe, just maybe, its not the lack of work but the lack of money that leads to the ailments. No money means more stress. This article blows.
One of the funny things I find about real life for me is that it is too often still is periods of either feast or famine, of one having an abundance or one faces poverty, having an absolute minimum essentials.. one has too much work or not enough.. one has too little time or too much free time, or one can't find the time to be alone, to rest, versus one has too much solitude and the same thing applies to one's friends.. one has loads of superficial friends, or a bare minimum of good, trustworthy friends.
(Eccl 5:19 KJV) Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God.
(Eccl 6:2 KJV) A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it: this is vanity, and it is an evil disease.
(Eccl 7:14 KJV) In the day
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