A Case for Solidarity: Common Challenges Involving Health and Health Care in the United States

10.18.2018

New research reveals that, among both whites and people of color, in rural and urban areas alike, working-class women are particularly likely to experience serious problems with poor health and unaffordable health care.

Former Families USA Director of Health Equity, Sinsi Hernández-Cancio, discusses the report with Senior Fellow Stan Dorn.

Families USA sponsored original research to learn what happens to health and health care at the intersection of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and place. We found startling commonalities across many of these demographic groups as well as important differences. Unsurprisingly, our analysis confirmed years of research showing that people of color have an increased risk of poor health. But some of what we found was new.

Perhaps our most significant and surprising finding is this: working-class women, across lines of race, ethnicity, and geography, face particularly high risks of serious physical and mental health problems, which grew rapidly during recent decades. This sends a powerful signal that U.S. public policy has been failing these women.

Read A Case for Solidarity: Common Challenges Involving Health and Health Care in the United States (44 pages, PDF)

Read the key findings (3 pages, PDF)

Listen to the media telebriefing from October 18, 2018