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France: Communiqué – 7 avril : journée mondiale du travail invisible

Europe/France/09-04-2021/Auteur et Source: www.ferc-cgt.org

Chaque mois, la Fédération de l’Éducation, la Recherche et la Culture CGT s’associe à une journée internationale pour alerter sur les conditions de travail et de rémunération des femmes, mais aussi sur les questions d’éducation, de recherche, et de culture qui construisent les changements de société nécessaires à une véritable et réelle égalité entre les femmes et les hommes au travail.

Depuis 2001 au Canada, l’AFEAS (Association féminine d’éducation et d’action sociale) oeuvre pour que le 1er mardi du mois d’avril soit une journée de réflexion et de revendication sur le travail invisible.

Cette Journée mondiale du travail invisible est l’occasion de dénoncer une inégalité persistante et quotidienne entre les femmes et les hommes dans notre société.
« Travail domestique » : ce terme a été créé dans les années 70 en France, par les féministes matérialistes, afin de mettre en lumière l’ensemble des tâches réalisées gratuitement par les femmes en raison de leur rôle dans la société, la famille, le couple. Ces féministes ont été les premières à soulever la profonde inégalité de la répartition des tâches ménagères entre les femmes et les hommes dans le quotidien de nos sociétés patriarcales.

Cinquante ans plus tard : le poids du « Travail domestique » varie. Si on appartient à une classe « aisée », on peut « sous-traiter » certaines tâches contre rémunération. Les travaux essentiels sont cependant toujours si peu valorisés et majoritairement pris en charge par des femmes.

Le « travail invisible » quant à lui est à visage multiple. Aujourd’hui encore, le travail non reconnu et non rémunéré se glisse partout.

Au travail, on le voit dans toutes sortes de tâches réalisées gratuitement par les femmes : en pause, qui le plus souvent prépare le café et lave ensuite les tasses ? Qui a pensé à faire livrer des pizzas quand une réunion s’éternise ? etc.
Dans la société, et alors qu’elles occupent des emplois moins bien rémunérés, les femmes sont souvent, à titre gratuit, les personnes aidantes auprès d’un parent vieillissant ou d’un proche malade.

Dans une même journée, les femmes peuvent ainsi cumuler travail salarié, travail domestique et soin à la personne.

Dans un ouvrage intitulé Travail invisible. Portrait d’une lutte féministe inachevée, dirigé par Camille Robert et Louise Toupin (Editions du remue-ménage), les auteures estiment que les ménagères ont été les grandes oubliées du mouvement féministe. Pour Camille Robert, alors que « toutes les femmes sont des ménagères, il n’y a pas eu de victoire significative du mouvement féministe sur le front du travail invisible par rapport aux autres dossiers féministes ». Une étude de l’INSEE réalisée en 2015 montre que le travail domestique gratuit représente deux tiers du temps de travail des femmes. Chez les hommes, c’est seulement un tiers, pour deux tiers de travail rémunéré, reconnu et valorisé. Et il apparaît également dans cette étude que les tâches les plus répétitives, ingrates et peu créatives des tâches ménagères incombent surtout aux femmes.

Il n’y aura pas d’égalité femmes/hommes sans conquêtes politiques et sociales telles que la création d’un véritable congé parental égal pour les deux parents, l’égalité salariale entre les femmes et les hommes, la valorisation des métiers dits « féminins ».

La FERC- CGT rappelle

  • qu’elle combat le système patriarcal, fondé sur une domination des hommes sur les femmes et toute forme de discrimination.
  • Qu’elle lutte pour l’égalité filles-garçons et dénonce les stéréotypes de genre.
  • Qu’elle défend l’accès des femmes aux postes de responsabilités dans tous les métiers et à tous les niveaux.
  • Qu’elle revendique l’égalité salariale et professionnelle.

Télécharger (PDF): travail-invisible-_com-presse_vf

Source et Image: https://www.ferc-cgt.org/communique-7-avril-journee-mondiale-du-travail-invisible

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New Zealand: Sexual violence, racism and exploitation, the sad state of student housing

Oceania/ New Zealand/ 07.07.2020/ Source: www.stuff.co.nz.

Sexual violence, racism and exploitation are all prevalent in the halls of residence at Victoria University, according to the university’s student association.

Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA) has released its submission to the inquiry into student accommodation with students detailing horror stories they have faced while living in halls of residence.

It is part of a national discussion on New Zealand’s under-regulated student accommodation sector.

One student living at Stafford House in 2019, said their bond was withheld because a flatmate left soap and a few food packets in the flat.

The students had a flat inspection before leaving, but one person was allowed to stay on an extra week, and left the items behind.

“As a result of this, the staff decided this meant our rooms were not spotless and thus they refused to give my sister and I our bonds back.”.

They emailed Stafford House in February this year but it was not until June they were told they would receive their bonds back, and as of June 29 were still waiting for their money.

Stafford House is managed by accommodation provider UniLodge, on behalf of more than 80 apartment owners.

Another student told of being sexually assaulted while living in a hall of residence.

“Myself and other girls were sexually assaulted in the hall and … after over three months of going through Vic Uni complaint process, I lost.

“He moved out on his own accord, but he has faced no repercussions.”

VUWSA’s submission claimed there was a lack of clarity for students when disclosing experiences of sexual violence, and limited support for victims, which fell to friends or residential assistants (RAs), who were typically older students.

One RA recalled having to deal with the brunt of sexual assault complaints along with two female colleagues, as the senior management team were all men.

The submission also claims staff in student accommodation struggled to handle issues of racism and other forms of discrimination.

Victoria University vice-chancellor Grant Guilford speaks at the May 5 Epidemic Response Committee meeting.

One student recalled being told to apologise when calling out other students for making fun of their culture.

VUWSA was calling for legislation to mandate a standard of care in student accommodation.

However, a University spokeswoman said there were inaccuracies and misinformation in VUWSA’s submission which was «very disappointing”.

The inaccuracies included things such as how the university educated students about consent, bystander intervention and their options when disclosing sexual harmful behaviour, she said.

The university provided “extensive” training to hall staff and RAs on these problems, and how to recognise and respond to students in distress.

The spokeswoman also said there were inaccuracies over the communication of information to students in halls of residence, the level of pastoral care given to those students, the role of RAs and the support provided to them and the University’s response to requests for information from VUWSA and its response to Covid-19.

“Universities New Zealand has contributed a submission to the inquiry into student accommodation, on behalf of all New Zealand universities.”

What is the student accommodation inquiry

The inquiry into student accommodation was called after the Covid-19 lockdown exposed the sector as being under-regulated and unfit for purpose.

It follows Interim Pastoral Care Code for domestic students, which Parliament passed in 2019 after the death of University of Canterbury student Mason Pendrous.

The Residential Tenancies Act does not apply to student accommodation, meaning students have fewer consumer protections than other renters.

The inquiry is being heard by the Education and Workforce Select Committee.

Source of the news: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/122048279/sexual-violence-racism-and-exploitation-the-sad-state-of-student-housing-in-new-zealand

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Japan rethinks work culture as coronavirus spurs school closures

Asia/ Japan/ 03.03.2020/ Source: asia.nikkei.com.

School closures mean companies must be more flexible for working parents

Companies in Japan are scrambling to accommodate working parents after nationwide school closures aimed at fighting the coronavirus went into effect on Monday, just days after the move was announced.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday called for schools across Japan to remain closed until the start of the new term in April in order to help fight the spread of the coronavirus. In a country known for its long working hours, shuttering schools means depriving many families of much-needed child care services.

Companies have responded with a number of measures, including shorter business hours, teleworking and flexible working times — all measures that the government has been trying to promote for years to modernize the country’s work culture and address such issues as overwork-related deaths.

The question is whether these changes will stick after the crisis has passed.

Life Corp., the nation’s largest supermarket chain, has shortened operating hours at all of its 280 or so stores. Starting Monday, doors open at 10 a.m. instead of 9 a.m. at all stores, while 86 stores are expected to close an hour or two earlier than the usual 9:30 p.m.

Life supermarkets employ many women who work part-time while raising children, and the school shutdowns are expected create personnel shortage, a Life official said.

Labor shortages are a chronic issue in Japan, and the coronavirus has already exacerbated the issue.

The restaurant and retail sectors also depend heavily on part-time labor. Zensho Holdings, which operates the Sukiya chain of beef bowl restaurants, will cut hours at or even close certain locations, in addition to streamlining its menus.

Odakyu Department Store, meanwhile, will close its Shinjuku and Machida locations at 7:30 p.m. daily from Monday through March 22. Normally, certain floors had stayed open until 10:30 p.m.

Tokyu Department Store will reduce its hours at four sites until March 18 at the latest. Hankyu Hanshin Department Stores will shorten its operating time by one to three hours through March 17. Electronics retailer K’s Holdings will lop one to two hours off its usual schedule at half of its 500 or so stores across Japan until March 19.

Sapporo Holdings, a major drinks company, encouraged 1,500 of its domestic employees, including those in delivery and logistics, to work from home from Monday to March 13. The company spokesperson, who said he was in the middle of teleconferencing from home, told Nikkei that telecommuting was «working fine.» He added, however, that some employees in logistics went to work as usual on Monday, as did all factory workers.

While companies scramble to adapt to the abrupt government announcement, some experts see an opportunity to improve conditions for working mothers and push the government’s work-style reform further.

Schoolchildren in Osaka are informed on Feb. 28 that classes will be cancelled starting the following Monday. (Photo by Tomoki Mera)

«The nationwide school closure will give the parents a chance to think about how to take time off work instead of just focusing on staying in the office,» said Yasuyuki Tokukura, who runs a nonprofit promoting work-style reform.

In 2018, the Abe government enacted work reform legislation that requires employers to ensure their employees take paid holiday and also sets a limit on overtime and gives more protection to non-regular employees through an «equal pay for equal work» provision.

In January, Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, a rising political star who previously served as labor minister, became the first male cabinet minister to take paid parental leave to help care for his first child.

Revamping Japan’s work culture has been a long-simmering problem, but the country’s severe labor shortages are prompting businesses to press ahead. Convenience store chains such as Seven-Eleven Japan have started changing their 24/7 operations, giving franchisees the option of close stores during late night and early morning, for instance.

The increase in typhoons and other natural disasters in recent years has also encouraged some businesses to embrace teleworking as a way to deal with emergency situations.

Teleworking is also being promoted as a way to reduce congestion during the upcoming Summer Olympic Games Tokyo. Last July, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government launched a campaign asking businesses to implement telework as a trial run for the Summer Olympics. More than 600,000 workers estimated to have participated in the campaign.

Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike made teleworking a feature in her vision for the city unveiled last year.

So far, however, progress on introducing a more flexible working style has remained limited. Last summer, the number of passengers on public transportation dropped only 4.3% in Tokyo during a campaign to reduce commuting.

The widespread school closures could improve the situation by forcing more companies to get on board with the government’s reform push — but what suits Tokyo may not work everywhere.

Manufacturers in particular have responded more coolly to Abe’s initiative, arguing that it is not suited to non-service industries like theirs.

Ota city in Gunma Prefecture, north of Tokyo, decided not to close its primary schools. The city is home to several factories, including those for carmaker Subaru. «People complained [to the municipal government] that they cannot take days off of work,» said Takahashi Yoshiya, who is in charge of school education in Ota. «Tokyo’s model for telework probably does not fit the rest of Japan,» he said.

Source of the notice: https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Japan-rethinks-work-culture-as-coronavirus-spurs-school-closures

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Child Suicides at Highest Rate Ever in Japan

Asia/ Japan/ 05.11.2019/ Source: www.nippon.com.

 

A total of 332 Japanese elementary, junior high, and high school students died by suicide in 2018, according to research by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology. This was an increase of 33% from the previous year and the highest number since 1988, when the data was first calculated with the current method. The figure included 227 high school students, 100 junior high students, and 5 elementary school students, with high school student suicides showing a year-on-year rise of 42%. Of the 332 students, 193 were boys and 139 were girls.

The total number of suicides in Japan (National Police Agency annual totals) peaked at 34,427 in 2003 and then began to fall. From 2010, this figure has fallen for nine years straight. In contrast, despite decreased student numbers due to the shrinking birthrate, child suicides are on the rise. In 2006, the suicide ratio was 1.2 per 100,000 children, whereas by 2018 this had more than doubled to 2.5.

Among the reasons for suicide (multiple possible), particularly high were family disagreements at 12.3% and being reprimanded by their parents at 9.0%, while bullying remained at a lower ratio of 2.7%. However, the reason for nearly 60% of child suicides was unknown, so it is not clear what is driving young people to take their own lives.

Reason for Suicide (Multiple responses possible)

Total Percentage
Family disagreements 41 12.3%
Reprimanded by parents 30 9.0%
Academic underachievement 17 5.1%
Worries over future prospects 28 8.4%
Issues with teachers 5 1.5%
Issues with friends (excluding bullying) 16 4.8%
Bullying 9 2.7%
Despair caused by illness 9 2.7%
Despair 21 6.3%
Issues with the opposite sex 22 6.6%
Mental disorders 24 7.2%
Unknown 194 58.4%
Other 18 5.4%

Compiled by Nippon.com based on 2018 MEXT Survey on problematic behavior and non-attendance of school children.

Source of the notice: https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00572/child-suicides-at-highest-rate-ever-in-japan.html

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Primary school teachers want to see Sats scrapped

By: Sally Weale.

A resounding 97% would like a ‘sensible alternative’ to the high-stakes attainment tests

A resounding 97% of primary school teachers would like to see high-stakes Sats tests scrapped, according to the largest poll undertaken on the subject.

More than 54,000 primary members of the National Education Union (NEU) took part in an indicative ballot last month. The vast majority said they supported their leaders’ campaign for “a sensible alternative” to the national standard attainment tests, which they say are damaging children and narrowing the curriculum.

The NEU said the result sent a clear message to the government that the assessment system must change. The results of a second question on the ballot paper, asking whether members would be prepared to take industrial action and boycott Sats, have not yet been released.

The NEU’s national executive will meet later this week to consider the next steps in their campaign, including industrial action, though the 39% response rate (more than 140,000 ballot papers were issued) would not meet the government’s industrial action ballot threshold.

The teachers’ poll coincides with the publication on Tuesday of the key stage 2 Sats results for 600,000 10- and 11-year-olds in England who took tests in reading, maths and spelling, punctuation and grammar (Spag) in May.

The tests are used by the government to assess school performance and hold schools to account. The NEU argues that young children should not be tested as it leads to hothousing, stress for both pupils and teachers, and a narrowing of the curriculum.

Kevin Courtney, the NEU’s joint general secretary, said the union’s indicative ballot showed there was “resounding support” for a change to primary assessment. “Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green party all have major concerns about our Sats-dominated system and have pledged to change it.

“Government now needs to listen, and to accept the need to change a culture in which too many classrooms are dominated by teaching to the test, at the expense of the learning and wellbeing of our children.”

The schools minister, Nick Gibb, dismissed the ballot, saying that scrapping Sats would be a backward step. “The NEU’s indicative ballot does not even represent half their members, let alone the whole teaching profession.

“These tests have been part of school life since the 90s and have been pivotal in raising standards in our primary schools. Abolishing these tests would be a terrible, retrograde step. It would enormously damage our education system and undo decades of improvement in children’s reading and maths.”

Jeremy Corbyn received a standing ovation when he announced to teachers gathered at the NEU’s annual conference in April that his party would scrap Sats. Delegates at the conference voted in favour of a ballot over a possible boycott of Sats tests, seeing off an amendment from the executive arguing that a ballot was not the most appropriate tactic.

Responding to the NEU ballot, the shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, said: “These results should send the government a clear message that Sats aren’t working for teachers or pupils, and it’s about time they listened.”

More Than a Score, a campaigning group of parents, teachers and education experts, said: “It’s not right or accurate to base a school’s overall performance on the test results of primary-age children. There are more supportive ways to assess children and fairer ways to measure schools, without the need to turn pupils into data points.”

Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jul/09/primary-school-teachers-want-to-see-sats-scrapped

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Switching sides: Whitewashing history in the age of Trump

By: Henry Giroux

Madeleine Albright, without irony, has written a book on resisting fascism. She has also published an op-ed in the New York Times pushing the same argument.

Albright, former secretary of state under Bill Clinton, is alarmed. She wants to warn the public to stop the fascism emerging under the Trump regime before it’s too late.

Unfortunately, moralism on the part of the infamous and notorious is often the enemy of both historical memory and the truth, in spite of their newly discovered opposition to tyranny.

It defies belief that a woman who defended the killing of 500,000 children as a result of the imposed U.S. sanctions on Iraq can take up the cause of fighting fascism while positioning herself as being on the forefront of resistance to American authoritarianism.

Albright appears on ‘60 Minutes’ in 1996.

Denis J. Halliday, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Iraq for part of the sanctions era, once said of those measures: “We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that.”

Is any policy worth the death of 500,000 children?

Albright, however, is not alone.

Hillary Clinton, herself a former war-monger and an unabashed ally of the financial elite, has also resurrected herself as a crusader in fighting the creeping fascism that now marks the Trump regime.

Speaking recently at the PEN World Voices Festival, Clinton appeared to have completely removed herself from her notorious past as a supporter of the Iraq war and the military-industrial-financial complex in order to sound the alarm “that freedom of speech and expression is under attack here in our own country.” She further called for action against America’s creeping authoritarianism.

‘Flight from memory’

It’s an odd flight from memory into the sphere of moral outrage given her own role in supporting a number of domestic and foreign policies both as a former first lady and as secretary of state.

There was the refusal to punish CIA torturers, the drone killings, the lavishing of funds to the military war machine, the shredding of the federal safety net for poor people and the endorsement of neoliberal policies that offered no hope or prosperity “for neighbourhoods devastated by deindustrialization, globalization, and the disappearance of work.”

Clinton’s critique of Trump’s fascism does more than alert the public to the obvious about the current government, it also legitimatizes a form of historical amnesia and a long and suppressed legacy of cruelty and human misery. It gets worse.

Michael Hayden, the former NSA chief and CIA director under George W. Bush, has joined the ranks of Albright and Clinton in condemning Trump as a proto-fascist.

Writing in the New York Times, Hayden, ironically, chastised Trump as a serial liar and in doing so quoted the renowned historian Timothy Snyder, who stated in reference to the Trump regime that “Post-Truth is pre-fascism.”

And yet he’s now being regarded as an honest, expert commentator on intelligence and other issues.The irony here is hard to miss. Not only did Hayden head Bush’s illegal National Security Agency warrantless wiretapping program while the head of the NSA, he also lied repeatedly about about his role in Bush’s sanction and implementation of state torture in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Dubious heroes

The United States and its Vichy Republican Party has drifted so far to the fascist right that people like Albright, Clinton and Hayden are serving as heroes in the political and ethical resistance to fascism.

While the call to resist fascism is to be welcomed, it has to be interrogated, not aligned with individuals and ideological forces that helped put in place the racist, economic, religious and educational forces that produced it.

I am not simply condemning the hypocrisy of former politicians who are now criticizing the emerging fascism in the United States. Nor am I proposing that only selective condemnations should be welcomed.

What I am suggesting is that the seductions of power in high places often work to impose a silence upon people that allow them to benefit from and become complicit with authoritarian tendencies and anti-democratic policies and modes of governance. Once they’re out of power, their own histories of complicity are too often easily erased, especially by the mainstream media.

Their newly found stances against fascism do nothing to help explain where we are and what we might do next to resist it now that it’s engulfing American society and its economic, cultural and political institutions.

What is often unrecognized in the celebrated denunciations of fascism by celebrity politicians is that neoliberalism is the new fascism.

And what becomes invisible in the fog of such celebration is neoliberalism’s legacy and its deadly mix of market fundamentalism, anti-intellectualism, rabid individualism, unchecked selfishness, shredding of the welfare state, privatization of the public sphere, white supremacy, toxic masculinity and all-embracing quest for profit.

‘Savage politics’

The new and more racist, violent and brutal form of neoliberalism under Trump has produced both a savage politics in the U.S. and a corrupt financial elite that now controls all the commanding institutions of U.S. society.

Systemic corruption, crassness, overt racism, a view of misfortune as a weakness, unapologetic bigotry and a disdain of the public and common good has been normalized under Trump, but it’s been gaining strength for the last 50 years in U.S. politics. Trump is merely the blunt instrument at the heart of a fascistic neoliberal ideology.

We need to be wary, to say the least, about those mainstream politicians now denouncing Trump’s fascism who while in power submitted, as noted U.S. sociologist Stanley Aronowitz puts it, “to neoliberal degradations of health care, jobs, public housing, and income guarantees for the long-term unemployed (let alone the rest of us).”

What is often ignored in the emerging critiques of fascism is neoliberalism’s legacy coupled with the mainstream media’s attempts to hold up many of its architects and supporters as celebrated opponents of Trump’s fascist government.

Trump is the extreme point of a long series of attacks on democracy —and former politicians like Albright and Clinton cannot be removed from that history.

Unchecked and systemic power, a take-no-prisoners politics and an unapologetic cruelty are the currency of fascism because they have long been the wedge that makes fear visceral and violence more than an abstraction.None of these politicians have denounced nationalism, the myth of American exceptionalism and the forces that produce obscene inequality in wealth and power in the U.S., or the oppressive regime of law and order that has ruled the U.S. ruthlessly and without apology since the 1980s.


This lethal mix is also a pathological condition endemic to brutal demagogues such as Trump. Trump and his ilk demand loyalty —not to justice and democracy, but loyalty to themselves, one that stands above the truth and rule of law.

Stamp out amnesia

The calls to resist fascism are welcome, but they can’t be separated from the acts of bad faith that helped produce it.

The fight against fascism is part of a struggle over memory. We must not engage in historical and social amnesia.

It is also a fight to defend the public spheres and institutions that make civic literacy, the public imagination and critical consciousness possible. We must expose the forces that are and have been complicit in the longstanding attack on democratic institutions, values and social relations, especially those that now hide their past and ideological convictions.

Any resistance to fascism has to be rooted in the call to make education central to politics with a strong emphasis on the teaching of historical consciousness and civic literacy as crucial weapons.

At the same time, the fight must be unwavering in its refusal to equate capitalism and democracy. We are at war over not just the right of economic equality and social justice, but also against the powerful and privileged positions of whiteness, toxic masculinity and the elimination of solidarity and compassion.

This is a war waged over the possibility of a radical democracy while acknowledging that the rich and powerful will not give up their power without a fight.

Looking for guidance on fascism in the U.S. today? Listen to Parkland activist Emma Gonzalez, 18, not Albright, Clinton or anyone else who has been complicit. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

And so instead of listening to complicit politicians and others deeply embedded in a system of exploitation, disposability, austerity and a criminogenic culture, we need to listen to the voices of the striking teachers, the Parkland students, the women driving the #MeToo movement, the Black Lives Matter organizers and others willing to make resistance visible, collective and widespread.

The fight against American-style fascism cannot and will not be lead by establishment politicians and pundits parading as the new heroes of the resistance to Trump’s fascism.

Source:

http://theconversation.com/switching-sides-whitewashing-history-in-the-age-of-trump-95729

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How do we improve the region’s health? Education and opportunity

By: DR. RANDY WYKOFF

“If you could only do one thing to improve health in the region, what would you do?” That is a question I have been asked regularly since my family and I moved to the Tri-Cities area a dozen years ago.

When I was first asked this question, my answer was simple and straight-forward. I knew that the major factors impacting our health are our behaviors — smoking, poor diet, lack of physical activity and, increasingly, substance abuse. My advice in those early years was that we needed to change our behaviors, especially as they relate to smoking.

Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, and Tennessee has one of the highest smoking rates in the nation. Smoking rates in Central Appalachia, including Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, are much higher than the country as a whole. The cost to the region—in health care, lost productivity and, most importantly, in the incredible devastation of families and communities—is hard to fathom.

Over the years, I realized my initial answer was short-sighted. While smoking, and other unhealthy behaviors, are clearly the major contributors to early disease and death in our country and our region, there are factors that lead people to smoke, to be less active and even factors that lead to substance abuse.

We know people with lower levels of education and less economic opportunities are more likely to smoke, less likely to eat healthy diets and more likely to engage in less physical activity. With that in mind, a few years ago, I changed my answer to suggest the most important thing we could do to improve health in the region is improve educational achievement and enhance economic opportunity.

These two factors, of course, go hand-in-hand.

To get a better job, people often need more education. It takes a robust tax base — which results from a strong economy — to support the types of programs schools need to help students succeed. We know that when they occur together — more educational achievement AND more economic opportunities — people’s health and well-being improve. Importantly, we know communities with greater educational achievement and higher income typically have lower smoking rates, lower obesity rates and more physical activity. They are, in short, healthier.

So many of the challenges facing our region persist from one generation to another. A child’s educational achievement often reflects the parents’ level of education. A child born into a poor family is very likely to remain poor for his or her entire life. Parental smoking is one of the factors that predicts a young adult’s decision to start smoking — and the list goes on-and-on.

The inter-generational cycles of poor health, poverty and lack of education are pervasive and well-documented. With this fact in mind, I have come to believe the most important thing we can do to improve health in the region is launch a concerted regional effort to disrupt the inter-generational cycles that limit the lifetime opportunities of so many children in our region.

With the merging of our region’s health systems, and the desire by both states to assure this merger has a long-lasting impact on the health status of the region, we have a remarkable opportunity to truly impact health in the region.

If we pool all of our regional efforts, and combine them with additional support from the states, the federal government as well as from regional and national foundations, and then apply a laser-like focus on disrupting the inter-generational cycles that significantly damage the children of our region, we have a unique and unprecedented opportunity to dramatically impact the health of this region.

This will require more focus on these issues than is currently anticipated. It will require the many community-service organizations in our region to work together on a small number of high impact priorities and it will require regional businesses to work together toward the common goal of giving every child in this region a better chance at a healthy and productive life.

If all of us work together to assure that, from the time a woman becomes pregnant to the time her child is ready to enter school, both of them have the knowledge, skills and opportunities to live the healthiest, most productive and most rewarding life possible, then we all benefit as our region becomes healthier, richer and more productive.

Source:

http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/Column/2018/04/01/No-1-thing-to-improve-the-region-s-health-Better-education.html

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