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4 Ind. J.L. & Soc. Equal. 1 (2016)

handle is hein.journals/injlaseq4 and id is 1 raw text is: 


ndiana Journal of Law and Social EqualityV


                                            Indiana Journal of

                                     Law   and  Social   Equality
                                                   Volume  4, Issue i






                   When Poverty is the Dagnosis:
    Th~e  Healt  h  Effets   of LIVing   Without on the Individual

                     Emily A. Benfer and Amanda   M. Walsh*







       Poverty is the most serious and ignored public health crisis of the twenty-
first century. The  health of  approximately  46.7 million  individuals, who  are
predominantly  low income  and minorities, is threatened by the social determinants
of health.1 For people experiencing poverty, the social determinants of health-the
social, economic, cultural, and environmental conditions that influence individual
and group health status-largely dictate overall health outcomes. In turn, individual
and  community   health affects everyone, regardless of income  level or minority
status. For example, it dictates crime levels, quality of education, real estate markets,
and healthcare  costs, and is relevant in nearly every law and courtroom.2 Yet the


*      Emily A. Benfer is a Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Health Justice Project,
Loyola University Chicago School of Law and Loyola University School of Medicine Department of
Public Health. Amanda M. Walsh is an Equal Justice Works Fellow with the Chicago Medical-Legal
Partnership for Children, a program of the Legal Council for Health Justice (formerly AIDS Legal
Council of Chicago), and a former student attorney in the Health Justice Project. This article is
dedicated to every client and individual living without in America, who inspires our work and whose
spark of divinity we honor.
1      See Emily A. Benfer, Health Justice: A Framework (and Call to Action) for the Elimination of
Health Inequality and Social Injustice, 65 AM. U. L. REV. 2 (2015); see also Carmen DeNavas-Walt &
Bernadette D. Proctor, U.S. Census Bureau, Income and Poverty in the United States: 2014 12 (2015),
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2o15/demo/p6o-252.pdf/.
2      See Benfer, supra note 1 (describing how efforts to improve health among low-income and
minority communities are impeded by inequitable social structures, stereotypes, as well as legal
systems and regulatory schemes that are not designed to contemplate the social determinants of
health in decision-making models and legal interpretation).


VOL. ' Issue 1

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