Poverty and Child Health in the United States

There is a great difference between the rich and the poor in terms of finances and living styles. The rich are used to living a lavish life whereby they can afford anything such as quality healthcare and food. On the other hand, the poor barely afford a good lifestyle, and therefore, their children tend to be associated with poor health. The health keeps on deteriorating given the fact that they cannot afford good quality medical healthcare (Black, Walker, Fernald, Andersen, DiGirolamo, Lu & Devercelli, 2017). The economic crisis of America has affected a substantial number of its citizens hence, forcing them to have poor living standards. Therefore, the poverty resulting from poor economic activities has contributed to the poor health conditions children living in the United States of America.
Poor economic activities have resulted in increased levels of poverty among some of the citizens in the US and, hence, making it difficult for them to afford quality medical care and other basic needs. As a result, this has an impact on the health of their children. The poorer the families get, the more their children's health keeps on deteriorating. The foreclosure of companies and the laying off of workers has resulted in the increased levels of poverty among the citizens living in underdeveloped communities. Hence, this increases the number of dependents that the working individuals have. Food and shelter are one of the basic needs that every family ought to fulfill and, therefore, healthcare is somehow a luxury to them. In extreme cases, poverty is associated with hunger and homelessness hence increasing the chances of the children contacting diseases. Their conditions get worse because they have no money to pay for medical care. In addition, the low-income communities lack good quality medical centers, and this has contributed to the poor health of the children living in such areas. Also, they have no sufficient funds to travel to the well up communities in seek for good medical care. Research conducted in 2015 revealed that an approximation of 63 % of the children living in low-income communities experiences regular health problems (Bradshaw, 2016). There are also many cases of childhood mortality and childhood disease. Due to the poor medical services, most of these children rarely receive the required immunization for all the children below the age of three years. This means that in the case whereby they contact the diseases associated with the immunizations, they will have low chances of survival. On the other hand, the children from the well up families receive all the necessary immunizations hence making it difficult for them to contact the diseases. This means that they will have better health as compared to the children from poor backgrounds. In addition, the current improvements in technology have also contributed to the increased levels because most of the tasks that used to be done manually are now carried out by automated computer programs. Therefore, the workers who used to work in those positions have to look for other means of survival. Some of them do not have the necessary skills to meet the current job market requirements and hence, they end up jobless. The outcome is that they will not have funds to raise their children...