{"id":1261,"date":"2016-09-09T08:52:48","date_gmt":"2016-09-09T08:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldwomanfoundation.com\/cannesagenda\/?p=1261"},"modified":"2022-07-16T06:54:01","modified_gmt":"2022-07-16T06:54:01","slug":"womens-health-tied-to-socioeconomic-status","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldwomanfoundation.com\/davosagenda2025\/womens-health-tied-to-socioeconomic-status\/","title":{"rendered":"Women’s health tied to socioeconomic status"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n
Chelsea Keenan<\/a>, The Gazette:\u00a0Low-income women have poorer mental, physical health: report. As education and income levels drop, so does a woman\u2019s access to health care.<\/div>\n

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That\u2019s according to the 2015 Condition of Women report, put out by the United Way of East Central Iowa. The report touched on a variety of factors, including access to care, behaviors and environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard for women struggling to make ends meet to be well,\u201d said Leslie Wright, vice president of community building at the United Way of East Central Iowa. \u201cHealth and well-being is driven by socioeconomic factors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost all the issues the report highlighted can be tied to lower socioeconomic status, from fewer health screenings to greater rates of depression. Many barriers can prevent poorer women from accessin health care and services such as lack of transportation, trouble taking time off work or no health insurance, experts said.<\/p>\n

Every few years the United Way releases a Condition of the Community report, which looks at the area as a whole. But Wright said this is the first time it pulled data solely on the health of Iowa women.<\/p>\n

It was presented in May to the Women\u2019s Leadership Initiative, a group that has raised more than $1 million to fund efforts helping women in Linn County. Wright said the report helped refocus the group\u2019s efforts and already has resulted in funding two new positions at local not-for-profits \u2014 a social worker position at Eastern Iowa Health Center and care coordinator at the Area Substance Abuse Council.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just want to support women in being healthy,\u201d Wright said.<\/p>\n

Low-income women are less likely to get regular breast cancer screenings \u2014 which are recommended annually for women over 40 \u2014 research has shown. The United Way\u2019s report further illustrates that.<\/p>\n

From 2010\u201412, 63.5 percent of women in Iowa with less than a high school degree received mammograms. In addition, 60.3 percent of women who earned less than $15,000 received mammograms.<\/p>\n

This is compared with 81.4 percent of women who are college graduates and 81.4 percent of women who make more than $50,000 a year.<\/p>\n

Linn County Public Health offers assistance year-round to low-income women, providing comprehensive cancer screenings \u2014 a clinical breast exam, Pap test and mammogram.<\/p>\n

Women\u2019s mental health tells a similar story, the report found \u2014 as income decreases, poor mental health increases.<\/p>\n

In fact, the report found low-income mothers are twice as likely to experience some form of depression in their lifetime than their middle and upper-class counterparts, the report said. This is likely due to higher levels of stress \u2014 financial and otherwise \u2014 experts said.<\/p>\n

In 2013, doctors diagnosed 24.3 percent of Iowa women with some form of depression, up 2.7 percent from 2011. But only about half of all mothers dealing with depression receive support, the report said.<\/p>\n

Wright added that many low-income mothers, especially those who are single parents, don\u2019t receive the mental health assessments, provider care and peer-support needed to deal with depression and other mental illnesses.<\/p>\n

The report also touched on how low incomes affect women and their families stability, which also can affect health.<\/p>\n

The number of homeless women has grown in Cedar Rapids, the report found, spiking 27.2 percent from 2013 to 2014. This likely is because of the growing number of female-headed households, births to unmarried women, families living in poverty and domestic violence cases, which increased 8.1 percent between 2009 and 2010.<\/p>\n

Representatives at Waypoint Services for Women, Children and Families, which provides help to women who are homeless, living in poverty or victims of domestic violence, said they have seen a definite increase in demand for services over the past few years.<\/p>\n

There is a direct correlation between a woman leaving an abusive partner and not having anywhere to go, said Lori Holman, a housing specialist in Waypoint\u2019s homeless and housing services department.<\/p>\n

She pointed out that a woman working for minimum wage would have to work 70 hours a week to afford a two-bedroom apartment in Cedar Rapids.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is unattainable for so many families,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

More than 2,500 women sought domestic violence services in fiscal year 2014, and the organization said midyear fiscal 2015 numbers indicate it will surpass the previous year, said Tara Beck, Waypoint\u2019s program director of domestic violence victim services.<\/p>\n

\u201cDomestic violence cuts across all demographics, all races, all education levels, all areas of faith,\u201d Beck said, adding that men and partners in gay or lesbian relationships also can be victims. \u201cIt\u2019s the entire spectrum.\u201d<\/p>\n

The not-for-profit offers free and confidential help to women in controlling and abusive relationships, including a 24-hour support hotline \u2014 (319) 363-2093 \u2014 individual and group counseling, support in court cases and assistance at local emergency rooms.<\/p>\n

The trauma of domestic violence not only affects the woman involved but her children as well, Beck said, resulting in the child acting out or being hypersexual.<\/p>\n

Beck and Holman said a woman on average attempts to leave her abusive partner between seven to nine times before the change is final. This can be due to financial strains, isolation or other reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cSociety is quick to blame the mother,\u201d Beck said. \u201cPeople need to put their anger and frustration on those whose choose\u201d to harm or psychologically harm these women.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chelsea Keenan, The Gazette:\u00a0Low-income women have poorer mental, physical health: report. As education and income levels drop, so does a woman\u2019s access to health care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1544,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-featured"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldwomanfoundation.com\/davosagenda2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldwomanfoundation.com\/davosagenda2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldwomanfoundation.com\/davosagenda2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwomanfoundation.com\/davosagenda2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwomanfoundation.com\/davosagenda2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1261"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldwomanfoundation.com\/davosagenda2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1422,"href":"https:\/\/worldwomanfoundation.com\/davosagenda2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1261\/revisions\/1422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwomanfoundation.com\/davosagenda2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldwomanfoundation.com\/davosagenda2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwomanfoundation.com\/davosagenda2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwomanfoundation.com\/davosagenda2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}