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7 episodes: 1x56mins, 6x26mins, 2008,
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"Riveting... Explores why your bank account,
race and zip code are more powerful
predictors of healthiness than your medical
coverage, habits and genes."
USA Today
UNNATURAL CAUSES sounds the alarm about the extent of our
alarming socio-economic and racial inequities in health—and
searches for their root causes. But those causes are not what we
might expect. While we pour more and more money into drugs,
dietary supplements and new medical technologies, UNNATURAL
CAUSES crisscrosses the country investigating the findings that are
shaking up conventional understanding of what really makes us
healthy—or sick.
“Inequality is killing us…Behavior, diet and
environment aren't always part of the answer.
The stress of living in a win-or-lose society
is…That health message may be a hard sell,
but I hope people will at least listen. So eat your
spinach at dinner — and then tune in to the
series.”
Seattle Times
This is a story that implicates us all. We’re spending $2 trillion a year
and rising on health care, more than twice per person than the
average industrialized nation. Yet American life expectancy ranks
29th in the world, behind Costa Rica. Infant mortality? Cypress,
Slovenia and Malta do better. One third of Americans are obese.
Chronic illness now costs American businesses more than $1 trillion
a year in lost productivity.
“The filmmakers offer plenty of
background…but the film’s power comes not
from experts or statistics but stories of real
people…. They powerfully reinforce the fact
that where you live can predict not just how
well you live but also how long. More than 120
organizations have begun to use this film as a
teaching curriculum. Once you check out the
series, you’ll see why.”
Newsweek.com
It turns out there’s much more to our health than bad habits, health
care or unlucky genes. The social conditions in which we are born,
live and work profoundly affect our well-being and longevity.
The four-hour series, broadcast by PBS, was conceived as part of an
ambitious communications and public engagement campaign
conducted with leading public health, policy and community-based
organizations. The campaign aims to use the series and companion
materials to help reframe the national debate over health and what we
can - and should - do to tackle our health inequities.
SERIES STRUCTURE
UNNATURAL CAUSES is a medical detective story out to solve
the mystery of what’s stalking and killing us before our time,
especially those of us who are less affluent and darker-skinned. But
its investigators keep peeling back the onion, broadening their inquiry
beyond the immediate, physical causes of death to the deeper,
underlying causes that lurk in our neighborhoods, our jobs and even
back in history. The perpetrators, of course, aren’t individuals but
rather societal and institutional forces. And theirs are not impulsive
crimes of passion. These are slow deaths—the result of a lifetime of
“This is really disturbing stuff … Presents a lot
of startling information, and hopefully it will get
a lot of people asking themselves some
serious questions.”
Matt Lauer, The Today Show
“Instructive, informative, depressing and
occasionally infuriating.”
New York Daily News
“Unnatural Causes, which tears back the veil
to show the socio-economic and racial
inequities in health as well as the public
policies that underpin them, should be required
viewing.”
Andy Stern, President, SEIU
grinding wear and tear, thwarted ambition, segregation and neglect.
But this is also a story of hope and possibility, of communities
organizing to gain control over their destinies—and their health. The
good news is that if bad health comes from policy decisions that we
as a society have made, then we can make other decisions. Some
countries already have, and they are living longer, fuller lives as a
result.
EPISODE ONE: In Sickness and In Wealth (56 min.)
The hour-long opening episode paints the big picture. Set in
Louisville, Kentucky, it is a story about health, but it’s not about
doctors or drugs. It’s about why some of us get sicker more often
and die sooner in the first place. What are the connections between
healthy bodies and healthy bank accounts and skin color? How do
social policies and the way we organize work and society affect
health? Solutions, the show suggests, lie not in more pills but in
more equality. "In Sickness and In Wealth" sets out the series’ main
themes: that health and longevity are correlated with
socio-economic status, that people of color face an additional health
burden, and that our health and well-being are tied to policies that
promote economic and social justice.
Six additional 28-MINUTE EPISODES, each set in a different racial
/ ethnic community, explore different health pathways (these
segments were bundled together two to an hour for the PBS
broadcast):
Bad Sugar (28 min.)
This episode travels to the O’odham Indian reservations of southern
Arizona, which are marked with the dubious distinction of perhaps
the highest rates of Type 2 diabetes in the world. There it explores a
re-conceptualization of chronic disease as the body’s response to
‘futurelessness’ – a condition arising from decades of oppression
and historical trauma. It looks at the prospects for a new approach
that places a community taking control of its own destiny as
fundamental to regaining health.
Place Matters (28 min.)
Recent Southeast Asian immigrants, along with Latinos, are moving
increasingly into what have been neglected Black urban
neighborhoods—and now their health is being eroded too. What
policies and investment decisions foster neighborhood
environments that harm—or enhance—the health of residents? And
what local actions can make a difference?
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RELATED LINKS
To learn more about the series and get involved
with the public impact campaign, visit:
www.unnaturalcauses.org
When the Bough Breaks (28 min.)
Infant mortality rates among African Americans remain twice as high as among whites. African American women with
graduate degrees still face a greater risk of delivering pre-term, low birth-weight babies than white women who didn't
finish high school. In this medical detective story, researchers are circling in on the added burden of racism through the
life-course as a long-term risk factor.
Becoming American (28 min.)
Recent Mexican immigrants, though generally poorer, tend to be healthier than the average American. But the longer
they’re here, the worse their relative health becomes. This is known as the “Hispanic Paradox.” Is there something about
life in America that is harmful to health? Conversely, what is protective about new immigrant communities that we can
all learn from? Can community and labor organizing reverse the downward trend?
Not Just a Paycheck (28 min.)
How does employment policy and job insecurity affect our health? Residents of western Michigan struggle against
depression, domestic violence and an uptick in heart disease and diabetes when the largest refrigerator factory in the
country shuts down. Ironically, the plant is owned by a Swedish company, where shutdowns, far from devastating lives,
are relatively benign events – for some even an opportunity – because of Swedish government policies rooted in an ethos
of shared responsibility.
Collateral Damage (28 min.)
Patterns of uneven development mark the Pacific islands and diabetes, cardiovascular and kidney diseases, even
tuberculosis, are taking a growing toll on Pacific Islander populations. In the Marshall Islands.and in the unlikely spot of
Springdale, Arkansas we witness how U.S. occupation, military policy and globalization impact people’s health--often in
unanticipated ways.
THE COMPANION WEB SITE
For Discussion Guides, Action Toolkits, Backgrounders, Handouts and more visit: www.unnaturalcauses.org
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