SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH: A CONCEPT WHOSE TIME HAS COME FOR DOCTORS TO UNDERSTAND

NEJM or New England Journal of Medicine or when in context of a medical conversation truncated to New England, is the leading medical publishing house in the USA. 
We are inundated with free websites and free "medical" journals on line and in print, but I respectfully think of my earlier teachers in Medicine, Dr. Howard Lessner, who used to say: Dont read things you or the library do not pay for.
I trust NEJM along with more investigation oriented medical journals such as CELL or JCI, Journal of Clinical Investigation to give an idea of what is happening. Of course, the Endocrine Society to which I belong has some scientific journals which I need to be up to date with.(not free!)

NEJM catalyst is a new compilation of articles and analysis of innovation in Health Care Delivery. While I am only peripherally involved in the administrative aspect of health care delivery , this first collection was impressive.
After having witnessed such manipulation of technical and laboratory data at the expense of lived in experiences of the patients, I could not believe this following data.

Incredible! this survey shows to the Health Care Providers, however you define who they are, need to understand that SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH are very important !!!

Majority of the population of this planet lack access and lack institutional or community resources to DECENT HEALTH CARE and that includes UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, along with the majority of the countries in the developing world. Of course there are glaring exceptions where the government puts the health of the population as priority as in CUBA.
Currently I am reading an interesting book by a professor of philosophy Havi Carel (Israel-UK) simply titles ILLNESS. Her bright world suddenly turned pessimistic when she was given the rare diagnosis of a lung lesion. Her own experience revealed to her that the patients view points and lived in experiences are not being given any value or listened to.  I highly recommend this book for people interested in ILLNESS (as opposed to DISEASE which is an objectification of ILLNESS) whether they are Doctors, Psychologists, Anthropologists, Nurses or Patients..

I was so lucky that I felt inadequate when confronted with the illness experiences of the Indigenous peoples and realized that all that I studied at the citadels of Medicine (London Melbourne Washington U St Louis  Miami) would be of lesser use to the patients if I did not under the phenomenology of their perception..
I took time off and went to London to study Medical Anthropology under some excellent teachers.. Gracias!

I have a lecture prepared to discuss with Indigenous peoples of North America: Diabetes as a Social Illness, Obesity as a social construction and at the beginning of the lecture I woudl ask the audience, the same question I am going to ask you now:
Do you think STRESS can cause Diabetes?
Usually the answer from the indigenous people, reflecting their lived in experiences, is, a resounding YES 

What is your answer ?