Health and Illness

Most people think luck, treatment options and lifestyle choices shape whether they are healthy or not. After all, that is the current mantra – eating better and exercising will lead to a healthier existence – a mantra that Canadians have wholeheartedly internalized. But that’s only part of the equation, and not the biggest part, says Raphael, a professor in York's School of Health Policy & Management in the Faculty of Health.
 What makes us sick has less to do with lifestyle, says profWhat makes us sick? Is it genetics or lifestyle? Is it too many burgers, too much alcohol, not enough exercise? Not according to York Professor Dennis Raphael, who, like the fourth-century BC philosopher Plato, attributes poor health to living conditions. Things like income level and people’s access to food, housing, education, and health and social services, are what determines whether people are ill or healthy, he says.
That’s contrary to what most Canadians believe, says Raphael in his new book About Canada: Health and Illness (Fernwood Publishing, 2010), which looks at who stays healthy, who gets sick and why. It’s written with the goal of educating the informed Canadian, as well as university students.
“Decades of research and hundreds of studies in Canada and elsewhere tell a different story: the primary factors that shape the health and well-being of Canadians – the factors that will give us longer, better lives – are to be found not in those much-discussed areas, but rather in the actual living conditions that Canadians experience on a daily basis,” says Raphael inAbout Canada: Health and Illness.