Film Series
New Format for 2008!
We have teamed up with the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation to feature a groundbreaking documentary series, UNNATURAL CAUSES: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? This unique and engaging series sounds the alarm about socioeconomic and racial inequities in health, and searches for their causes: circumstances in which we are born, live and work that actually get under our skin and affect our risk for disease as surely as germs, viruses or genes.
The series consists of a compelling hour-long opening episode and several follow-on half-hour stories, each set in different racial and ethnic communities. Blue Cross representatives will facilitate discussions after the segments. Attendees will receive handouts on how to educate, organize and advocate for policies that promote well-being for everyone.
UNNATURAL CAUSES and its companion tools bring into view how economic justice, racial equality and caring communities may be the best medicines of all.
Please check the Conference Agenda for specific times when the various stories will be shown.
Opening Episode
In Sickness and In Wealth
This film lays out the big picture: Who gets sick and why? Set in Louisville,
Ky., it shows how health and longevity are correlated with class status,
how racism imposes an additional risk burden, and how solutions lie in
making inequality an urgent public policy matter.
Short Stories
Bad Sugar
O’odham Indians of Arizona suffer one of the highest rates of type
2 diabetes in the world. Is this due to their genes, or is it part of
the body’s response to decades of poverty, oppression and historical
trauma? A new approach rooted in the community regaining control over
its destiny offers hope where medical-only interventions have failed.
Becoming American
Recent Mexican immigrants tend to be healthier, though often poorer, than
the average American. Yet the longer they live here, the worse their relative
health becomes. What’s protective about new immigrant communities,
and what erodes this shield over time?
Not Just a Paycheck
In western Michigan, a factory closure undermines the lives and health
of a white, working class community. But the same company shut down its
Swedish plant with hardly a ripple, thanks to very different social policies.
Place Matters
As Southeast Asian immigrants and Latinos move into long-neglected black
urban neighborhoods, their health begins to erode. How do built space
and the social environment affect our health? What policies and investment
decisions create these environments? What actions can make a difference?
