However, many indicators that measure living conditions fail to measure what people think and feel about their lives, such as the quality of their relationships, their positive emotions and resilience, the realization of their potential, or their overall satisfaction with life.” 3 Tracking these conditions is important for public policy. Good living conditions (e.g., housing, employment) are fundamental to well-being. “Well-being is a positive outcome that is meaningful for people and for many sectors of society, because it tells us that people perceive that their lives are going well. At CDC, we have a health-related quality of life program that assesses health-related quality of life and wellbeing outcomes in the U.S. June values “the life in her years” as much as she values living a long life. Why? Because the most important aspects of her life are threatened. June is highly motivated, though, to change her diet, exercise regularly, and take her medications as prescribed. After so many years of having to neglect her health, she is now experiencing a number of serious complications of diabetes. Before passage of the Affordable Care Act, she had little access to the healthcare system, and only very recently has she been able to successfully manage her diabetes. A single mother of 4 adult children, June worked for the past 30 years in a factory that made cardboard boxes. I wish you could see my grocery bill every time I go to the supermarket! And, the costs of medicines! Who can afford it? On any given day, it’s all I can do to just get to the end of the day without breaking down!” This was one side of the conversation I overheard between my neighbor – a public health nurse, and June. Everyone can’t go to college, or eat the way you say we should eat. “Every time I hear you talk about health, it seems that poor people don’t have a chance. We never lose sight of the “faces” and families behind the data. This is why we work every day at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to identify concrete and actionable steps toward achieving health equity. However, this upward trend is neither as rapid as it should be – we lag behind dozens of other nations – nor is it uniformly experienced by people in the United States.” 2 “People are living longer, healthier, and more productive lives. Over the past 50 years, the United States has made significant progress in improving health outcomes for the nation as a whole. The legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer is an example of personal empowerment and resilience, and how social factors, broadly considered, contribute to the health status of individuals and communities. Now I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.” 1 The cumulative impact of these and other stressful life experiences negatively impacted her health, but she remained committed to securing her civil rights, because in her now famous words “All my life I’ve been sick and tired. She had been jailed, beaten, and threatened for her advocacy, but didn’t back down. Fannie Lou Hamer – voting rights activist, civil rights leader, and humanitarian, captured the nation’s attention during the 1964 Democratic National Convention, when she described the injustices she and others in her community had endured in their fight for the right to vote.
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