We Cannot Manage What We Do Not Measure
Pay attention to the whimper or be forced to cry uncle. Those are your choices. Those were the choices that faced the nation ten and twenty years ago as naysayers to the economic policies certain to bankrupt our country became evident, but they were ignored or lambasted as fringe. The collective wisdom forged forward with derivatives, with the merging of investment and saving banks, against the whimpers of many, only to cry uncle in 2008 as the catastrophe loomed.
As the ‘other 99%’ seek to realign our political and economic situations, women must lead the changes in the health industry. We must pay attention to the whimpers, to the evidence that something is off, and more importantly, we must take heed before uncle is cried. How do we do that within such a flawed system of industrialized, profit-based medicine? Education, measurement, transparency and responsibility.
Education. The number one factor contributing to health is education. The more educated women (and men) are the better health they experience. Why? Better decision-making. Although there are clear associations between income and health, the association between education and health is stronger.
Education allows one to navigate the morass of medical marketing, cut to the truth, and identify the untruth in advertising. Education permits women the confidence to seek alternate directions in health and not simply take what is prescribed to them as gospel. Quite simply, education permits responsibility in health choices. It doesn’t necessarily lead to taking responsibility or making the right choices; we’ve all seen really smart, highly educated people do really stupid things. Rather, education creates the environment where those choices can be made.
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