Tag: do’s

Prioritize Health

Insights from McKinsey. With a video.

 
During these trying times, it is especially important that we prioritize health issues in our collective and individual planning.

To begin, as we previously reported:

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    McKinsey Insights: Prioritize Health

    Today, we turn to McKinsey & Company for expert insights:

    The COVID-19 pandemic is an unwelcome reminder of just how much health matters for individuals, society, and the global economy. For the past century or more, health improvements from vaccines, antibiotics, sanitation, and nutrition, among others, have saved millions of lives and been a powerful catalyst for economic growth. Better health promotes economic growth by expanding the labor force and by boosting productivity while also delivering immense social benefits. However, in recent years, a focus on rising healthcare costs, especially in mature economies, has dominated the policy debate, whereas health as an investment for economic return has largely been absent from the discussion.

    In Prioritizing Health: A Prescription for Prosperity, we measure the potential to reduce the burden of disease globally through the application of proven interventions across the human lifespan over two decades. By intervention, we mean actions aimed at improving the health of an individual. These range from public sanitation programs to surgical procedures and adherence to medication and encompass interventions recommended by leading institutions like the World Health Organization or national medical associations. We also examine the potential to reduce the disease burden from innovations over the same period.

    Click the image to access the report. And then watch a video summary.

    Prioritize Health

     

Reopening and the Disabled

Risks and rewards of COVID-19 behavior for the disabled.

 
A while back, during more normal times, we looked at travel and the disabled. Now, we look  at reopening and the disabled.  As difficult as it may be for the rest of us, it is far tougher for those with disabilities.

COVID-19 Reopening and the Disabled

For insights on this important topic, we refer to Andrew Pulrang’s article in Forbes:

People with disabilities and chronic illnesses generally tend to side with caution. For various practical reasons, they are at higher risk of getting infected. And if infected, we are far more likely to get much sicker and die from COVID-19.

So most of us probably do tend to favor more precautions and longer restrictions aimed at curbing and stamping out the pandemic. Being part of the probable collateral damage of premature ‘reopening’ makes this all so much more concrete and immediate for disabled people.

On the other hand, disabled people exhibit some affinity for the risk takers. In most situations, disabled people tend to greater willingness to take risks, not less. Otherwise, we would never accomplish anything. We understand quite intimately what it means to weigh the risks and benefits that always come with freedom and opportunity.

Recognizing, rethinking, and adjusting to risk is in many ways the core of the disability rights movement and disability culture. This is especially true for assertive advocate sand disability rights activists. The right to take risks,  often phrased as “the dignity of risk,” is very important to disabled people individually, and to the disability community as a whole.

We cherish this right to take risks all the more because most disabled people at some point in our lives have to contend with some kind of outside authority either informally or formally telling us what we can and cannot do, simply because of our disabilities.

To read more, click the image.

Reopening and the Disabled
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