New Guide To Providing Health Care To The Poor Focuses On How They See The World
By John Ostapkovich
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The link between poverty and bad health outcomes is well-known, but the solution may lie in better listening skills.
The new guide "Bridges to Health and Healthcare" is a lens, according to co-author Lucy Shaw, that clarifies the many ways in which poverty changes everything.
The reason this is critical, she says, is it goes straight to how poor patients behave, often in counter-productive ways:
"Health care institutions are middle class institutions and so they run on achievement. Our expectation when the patient shows up is they're there because they know they ought to be there. They want to be there. They're going to do everything we tell them to do and that's not the case."
This is because, Shaw says, the world of the poor operates, not on an achievement paradigm, but day-to-day survival. Someone dodging bullets is unlikely to heed diet advice.
This book has ways to bridge that divide.
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