Unit 2 Page

Did you know that almost half of the world or roughly about 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day? Why is that? What does it mean to be poor? What is poverty? Poverty is described to be the state of living without the basic needs of humans such as not having health or educational services available. The financial aspect of poverty seems to be the most important factor. This is because without money families can't afford to stabilize themselves and send their children to schools to get the education they need to provide their future families. But poverty doesn't just have one cause, different factors have to be put into consideration in terms of the different cases of poverty. For example, being poor in a country like Canada is much different than living in a poor country like Haiti. Poverty is certainly an issue that can be worked on by all members of society. The chart below indicates the number of people (in billions) below and above the poverty line.

Another important factor to take into account is Inequality in the sense that there is a difference in being poor and having little to no chance of obtaining their basic needs and not being absolutely poor because even in the most wealthiest countries, the poor still have access to basic services. The chart below shows the difference in income distributions in different parts of the world. As you can see, there is a great difference in the income of the richest compared to the income of the poorest.

Chairman of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health, Sir Michael Marmot, spoke about the Health Inequality and how it effects all countries, not just the poorest. He believes that most of the health problems that they face are due to social, economic, and political factors. In an interview, he said “The key determinants of health of individuals and populations are the circumstances in which people are born, grow, live, work and age,” he also adds "They are the cause premature of disease and suffering; that’s unnecessary. And that’s why we say a toxic combination of poor social policies, bad politics and unfair economics are causing health and disease on a grand scale.” I think Marmot's' viewpoint is accurate because the poorest nations also tend to have the poorest health, even looking at the life expectancy of certain countries, one can see the drastic difference. I think that we all could help by making donations to the poor and getting others to do the same. For more facts and statistics, you can visit this site.