First published in 2010, Janet R. Grochowski’s article Social Determinants and Family Health* outlines the various ways in which factors such as race, ethnicity, gender, and socio-economic status, among many other factors, affect both physical and mental health. It is very apparent that each of these things alone, as well as in combination with one another, can have significant affects on health, quality of life, and life expectancy.
While there are many different facets to these issues and lots of different health problems to be addressed, one that really interested me was varied levels of access to recreation. Grochowski’s case study begins with brief profiles of four people. All of them work for the same company, and yet each experiences a very different level of health. She briefly mentions that the most affluent has the most access to recreation; this access is based both in economic terms, but also in geographic location.
As mentioned in a recent post on Everyday Feminism, outdoor recreation isn’t accessed by different groups of people in equal ways. The title of the post suggests that the main barrier is financial — it costs money to have the “right” gear or to even access areas where outdoor recreation is possible. However, it also makes it very clear that outdoor recreation is also stratified based on race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation.
For example, communities of color are far less likely to be located near parks or other natural recreation areas. As spoofed in a classic Funny or Die video, people of color don’t access hiking trails or areas like national parks at the same rates that whites do. In addition to access, recreational activities are often learned at a young age. When people of color or women (of any race) don’t have family members who do these activities, and they also don’t see themselves reflected in representations of these activities through any type of media, they are less likely to pick them up.
Luckily, there are some movements trying to change this, such as the social media campaigns #brownpeoplecamping (also curated on Instagram as @brownpeoplecamping) or #melaninbasecamp (also @melaninbasecamp). The Everyday Feminism post also mentions some groups working to provide recreational access to people of color, members of the GLBTQ community, and more. Those that are careful to include children and families, such as Latino Outdoors, provide a multi-generational approach to disparities that are otherwise likely to increase over time.
The solutions to some of these health disparities are undoubtedly complex, but there seems to be a lot of room in the library and information science world to help get people started. Regarding recreational access, libraries could consider lending fitness and activity gear that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive to people. They might also create programs about health and fitness in ways that demonstrate how it can be accessible to people from many different backgrounds.
To reach back to the other issues Grochowski addresses, libraries might consider the types of health resources they acquire, such as databases, journals, and books, and how they display or promote those materials. LAMs could all find ways to participate in local health campaigns or in national periods of recognition about mental health or other health issues in order to help de-stigmatize these experiences. Libraries could consider partnering with local clinics in order to offer flu shots or educational programming about prenatal health, free local health screenings, and much more. Each of these would address an issue that Grochowski lays out as being disproportionate among women and people of color. (Her list includes infant mortality, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancers, HIV/AIDs, immunizations, and mental illness, as well as the compounding factor that many of these things tend to be stigmatized and therefore harder to address.)
While the specific actions taken might vary based on the community an institution is in and the population it serves or strives to serve, there seems to be a lot of room for LAMs to help close the gap in some of these health disparities.
*Grochowski, J. R. (2010). Social determinants and family health. In S. J. Ferguson (Ed., 2016), Race, gender, sexuality, and social class: Dimensions of inequality and identity (2nd ed., pp. 377-385). Los Angeles: CA, Sage.
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