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ETV Presents “Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?”

New Four-Week Series Begins Airing Sunday, June 15 at 6 p.m.

For Immediate Release
May 15, 2008

Columbia, SC...This Summer, ETV will broadcast Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?, a new PBS documentary series that crisscrosses the country investigating the findings that are shaking up conventional beliefs about what really makes us healthy — or sick. The programs will air statewide over four consecutive Sundays from June 15 through July 6 at 6 p.m.

The groundbreaking mini-series coincides with the presidential election-year discussions regarding the estimated 47 million Americans who lack health coverage and asks what makes us ill in the first place. Each installment examines why economic status, race and zip code are even more powerful predictors of health and life expectancy than smoking.

During each hour-long program, viewers will see mounting evidence that work, wealth, neighborhood conditions and lack of access to resources can get under the skin and disrupt human biology as surely as germs and viruses. Experts and public health professionals emphasize that because these conditions are distributed unequally, so are the patterns of chronic disease, such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, asthma, and even some cancers.

Later this year, ETV will produce an extensive series of programs that addresses social and environmental issues in South Carolina that affect the health of its citizens. 

Posted below are episode descriptions. 

Sunday, June 15 - In Sickness and in Health - Filmed in Louisville, Kentucky, this episode examines not only health care but seeks to discover what makes us sick in the first place. The lives of a CEO, lab supervisor, janitor and unemployed mother illustrate how social class shapes access to resources and opportunity, resulting in a health-wealth gradient.  On average, people at the top live longer, healthier lives. Those at the bottom are more disempowered, get sick more often and die sooner.  This program also explores how racial inequality imposes an additional risk burden on ethnic minorities. Solutions being pursued in Louisville and elsewhere focus not on more pills but on more equitable social policies.

Sunday, June 22 (2 segments) - When the Bough Breaks - Why do infant mortality rates among African Americans remain more than twice as high as among white Americans? Although birth outcomes are generally better for those with higher education and income, black women with college degrees are still more likely to give birth prematurely than white women who haven’t even finished high school.  This half-hour episode takes an in-depth look at the mystery of the black-white infant mortality gap.

Later in the program, studies have found that recent Mexican immigrants, though typically poorer, tend to be healthier than the average American. But the longer they live in the U.S., the worse their relative health becomes, even as their economic status improves. Known as the Latino "paradox," the second half-hour, Becoming American, sheds light on the shifting health status of newly-arrived Latino immigrants.

Sunday, June 29 (2 segments) - Bad Sugar - The Pima and Tohono O’odham Indians of southern Arizona have arguably the highest rates of Type 2 diabetes in the world. A century ago, the disease was virtually unknown there, but the subsequent diversion of river water destroyed the tribes' farms and traditional ways, plunging them into poverty and dependence.  This half-hour episode takes a revealing look at the causes and effects of diabetes within two Native American communities.

In the second half-hour, Unnatural Causes connects with Latinos and Southeast Asians who have been moving into long-neglected black urban neighborhoods like those in Richmond, California. Segregation and a lack of jobs, access to fresh foods, safe parks, and affordable quality housing has harmed the health of their African-American neighbors, and now the newcomers’ health is suffering too. This episode, Place Matters, pointedly shows the correlation between health, wealth and zip codes. 

Sunday, July 6 (2 segments) - Collateral Damage - The lives and health of Marshall Islanders in the South Pacific were disrupted in a unique fashion when the U.S. used their outer islands for extensive nuclear testing after WWII. Their traditional way of life destroyed, many Marshallese, desperate for jobs at the nearby Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Base, crowded the neighboring island of Ebeye.  While there, tuberculosis and other diseases -- fed by poverty and the squalid living conditions -- took a toll on the citizens' health. Many Marshallese, seeking a better life, have ended up in the unlikely place of Springdale, Arkansas.  This half-hour episode traces the health challenges of Marshall Islanders from the South Pacific to the Ozarks. 

In 2003, when Electrolux shut down the largest refrigerator factory in the U.S. and moved it to Juarez, Mexico the lives of many of the 3,000 employees who had worked in the Greenville, Michigan plant were turned upside down. Hospital visits in the city more than tripled as a result of depression, alcoholism, and domestic abuse. And heart disease and mortality are predicted to rise. But when Electrolux shut down one of its Swedish plants it, caused hardly a ripple.While Americans are left to fend for themselves, Swedish social policies assume an ethos of shared responsibility and protect workers from the worst of globalization.  In the second half-hour, Not Just a Paycheck examines the devastating effects of layoffs and job insecurity in western Michigan.

South Carolina ETV is the state's public educational broadcasting network with 11 television and eight radio transmitters, and a multi-media educational system in more than 2,500 schools, colleges, businesses and government agencies. Using television, radio and the web, SCETV's mission is to enrich lives by educating children, informing and connecting citizens, celebrating our culture and environment and instilling the joy of learning.

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For more information, contact Rob Schaller at (803) 737-6556 or rschaller@scetv.org.