Question: If you could destroy a disease (any).. Which one would it be?

Aina Roca Barcelo answered on 12 Jun 2019:

“Inequalities” (of any kind).

In England, most deprived males and females are believed to be around 5 times more likely to die of a curable disease than least deprived males. However, it not only impacts the number of deaths, but also quality of life in general.

This is due to two main aspects:
1) People with little resources are more likely to be exposed to higher levels of environmental hazards (e.g. air pollution)
2) They are more vulnerable to the health effects, either because they have a generally poorer health status or because they have less resources protect their health.

“Socioeconomic inequalities” have been recognized by multiple international organizations as a “fundamental environmental hazard” affecting population’s health, next to other as well-known as air pollution. What is even more interesting though, is that its effects do not limit to a unique biological pathway but instead they include really complex and interconnected impact routes by interacting with other co-existent environmental hazards and underlying health conditions.

So, yeah… if I had the superpower to destroy a disease… I would say: Let’s destroy the social disease of “inequalities”!