the interconnectedness of health and poverty

With this post, I think I have amassed a whole backlog of issues worth further analysis in my wordpress blog. And to add to that...

I'm now helping out with a community project, which is about evaluating whether people require funds from a welfare organisation. Part of that involves a home visit, and this post was about the home visit... tangentially.

A near-retired man has heart disease, and that is preventing him from taking job. And he requires financial assistance. I wonder if being poor and having such chronic health problems is correlated. I wonder about the access to health education and good food, and think about whether the poor have access to cheaper but poor-quality food, rich in fats and carbohydrates, which ends up causing health problems, financial problems in the longer run.

So the thought is: is education also correlated with health problems correlated with economic problems? I don't know. But observing the family, health problems have been more obvious, and I hope that the cycle does not get perpetuated.

Add to that, is the thought about the elderly. Govt is probably now in mitigation mode, which means that they want to lessen the social, economic costs of being old. Won't work. Because the perspective is entirely wrong. Being old isn't all bad, but instead, needs to be re-looked at. The framing of the old s crucial, because its prob also one of the missing components that make SG a place really worth living. Can I grow old here? - that question will come into full force many years later...

In other words, old has to be reframed as gold.