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Essay on Health is Wealth: 200, 300 and 400 Words

money or health essay

  • Updated on  
  • May 2, 2024

Essay on health is wealth

Essay on Health is Wealth: The saying “health is wealth” rings true for all of us. Material possessions lose their lustre when you are unwell. Good health allows us to experience life fully, with energy for work, relationships, and enjoyment. While money can buy medical care, it cannot buy true health and happiness. By prioritising healthy habits like balanced meals and exercise, you invest in your greatest asset – your well-being.

Table of Contents

  • 1 Essay on Health is Wealth in 200 Words
  • 2 Essay on Health is Wealth in 300 Words
  • 3.1 Physical Well-Being
  • 3.2 Mental Health
  • 3.3 Economic success
  • 3.4 Life Quality
  • 4 11+ Quotes on Health and Well Being

Quick Read: How to Calculate Percentage in ICSE Board Class 10?

Essay on Health is Wealth in 200 Words

‘The most important wealth in the world is our health. Today, everyone is running after a materialistic life, ignoring true happiness and their well-being. In this chaotic and digital world, the phrase “health is wealth” holds great importance. It reminds us that having good health is the foundation on which a fulfilling life is built. 

Speaking of the advantages of having good health, it allows us to enjoy life to the fullest. Without having a healthy mind and body the whole process becomes elusive. 

Moreover, success and productivity depend on being in excellent health. It enables people to achieve their goals, work productively, and give back to society. An unwell person frequently encounters obstacles that prevent them from realising their hopes and dreams.

Keeping one’s health is also an investment in the future. Regular exercise and a healthy diet are two preventative healthcare practices that can assist in avoiding the need for future, expensive medical treatments. It is important to take a responsible approach to protecting one’s general well-being as well as one’s financial wealth.

Finally,” health is wealth” emphasises the importance of well-being in our lives. It reminds us that the priceless gift of health cannot be replaced by any amount of material prosperity. One must put their health first and treasure it beyond everything else if one wants to live a truly wealthy and fulfilling life.

Quick Read: Essay on Best Friend

Essay on Health is Wealth in 300 Words

Health is riches, after all. This proverb, which emphasises the critical necessity of health in one’s life, is full of timeless wisdom. It is simple to ignore the priceless gem that good health represents in a world that is focused on material prosperity and material interests.

First and foremost, being healthy helps people to live happy and fruitful lives. It serves as the cornerstone on which all other accomplishments are constructed. When someone is in good health, they have the vigour, strength, and stamina to achieve their aspirations, objectives, and ambitions. Poor health, on the other hand, can be a formidable obstacle that restricts one’s potential and prospects.

Additionally, having good health results in a higher quality of life. Healthy people require fewer medical procedures and are less in pain and suffering. They can enjoy life’s simple pleasures like spending time with loved ones, going outside, and eating good food without worrying about their diet.

The state of one’s health is crucial to their mental well-being. Mental health and physical well-being are tightly related. An emotionally stable and resilient state of mind is frequently a byproduct of physical health. The importance of health in one’s entire well-being is further highlighted by the fact that poor health can result in stress, worry, and depression.

The economic effects of health are another important factor. People who are in good health tend to be more productive at work, which increases earnings and improves financial security. On the other hand, health issues can cause medical expenses and decreased earning potential, which can have a considerable influence on one’s financial security.

The term “health is wealth” embodies a profound truth, to sum it up. The most valuable asset a person can have is good health because it supports all other facets of life. It enables people to live fulfilling lives, pursue their aspirations, and maintain their mental and emotional health. As a result, we must give our health priority and make the necessary investments because it is the only type of wealth that will never be exceeded or replaced by worldly belongings.

Quick Read: Trees are Our Best Friend Essay

Essay on Health is Wealth in 400 Words 

The proverb “Health is Wealth” maintains a special place in our lives. It emphasises how important good health is as the cornerstone of a successful and joyful life. The genuine meaning of riches is frequently missed in today’s fast-paced society when success is frequently gauged in monetary terms. This essay explores the deep significance of this adage and shows how true it is that the best asset anyone can have is their health.

Here are all the benefits one gets:

Physical Well-Being

Being physically healthy is the same as being in good health. Our bodies perform at their peak when we are healthy, enabling us to go about our daily lives with vigour and enthusiasm. A productive existence is built on a foundation of physical fitness. It makes it possible for us to work effectively, pursue our objectives, and fully appreciate life. Even the most plentiful wealth becomes meaningless in the absence of health.

Mental Health

 In addition to physical health, mental health is a critical element of our entire prosperity. Ageless wisdom is having a good mind and a healthy body. Our cognitive functioning, emotional stability, and resiliency in the face of difficulties are all influenced by our mental health. Material prosperity can become a cause of stress and unhappiness in the absence of mental wellness.

Economic success

Economic success is directly correlated with good health. People may actively participate in the workforce and make more money when they are healthy. Healthier populations are also less financially burdened by healthcare expenses, releasing funds for other basic requirements. As a result, investing in healthcare is an investment in the prosperity of a country.

Life Quality

The genuine wealth of life is found in its excellence. A person in good health can enjoy life’s joys, go on trips, engage in hobbies, and spend time with loved ones. No amount of money can replace the richness that these experiences bring to life. Healthy people are better able to live fulfilling and pleasurable lives.

To conclude, the motto “Health is Wealth” perfectly describes what a prosperous life entails. While having material possessions is necessary for comfort and security, how we use and enjoy our wealth is ultimately influenced by our health. Given that health is the foundation upon which all other types of wealth are formed, investing in it should be a top priority. One must understand that health is the ultimate treasure that neither money nor anything else can ever fully replace or imitate to truly understand its worth. Therefore, let us never lose sight of the fact that our health is the most priceless asset we have when pursuing success and happiness.

Also Read: Essay on Health and Fitness for Students

11+ Quotes on Health and Well Being

Here are popular quotes on health and well-being:

  • “Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” – Jim Rohn
  • “Health is a state of complete harmony of the body, mind and spirit.” – B.K.S. Iyengar (Yoga teacher)
  • “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” – Benjamin Franklin (Polymath)
  • “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” – Hippocrates (Ancient Greek physician)
  • “A sound mind in a sound body.” – Juvenal (Roman satirist)
  • “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” – Zig Ziglar (Motivational speaker)
  • “Your body hears everything your mind says.” – Naomi Judd (Singer)
  • “The first wealth is health.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson (American philosopher)
  • “The groundwork for all happiness is health.” – Leigh Hunt (British writer)
  • “To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise, we shall not be able to keep the mind strong and clear.” – Gautam Buddha (Spiritual leader)
  • “The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.” – Oprah Winfrey (Talk show host)
  • “Peace is the result, not of the absence of conflict, but of the ability to handle it.” – Roosevelt (American President)

Explore other Essay topics for school students here:

Wealth and health are vital, but many people believe that health is ultimately more crucial. This is because it is challenging to gain from riches without being in excellent health.

A healthy person has an improved social life and a sound mental condition, which refers to a person’s emotional and psychological state and is just as important for health as physical fitness.

A person with poor mental health has a higher chance of chronic physical conditions. If you are physically fit and active, your neural functioning is enhanced which can be beneficial for your academic, social and personal environment.

For more information on such informative topics for your school, visit our essay writing page and follow Leverage Edu ! 

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Health is Wealth Essay

A well-known proverb that emphasises the value of health and demonstrates that health equals wealth. Wealth is meaningless to us if we are not well or not feeling good in a condition of physical, mental, and social well-being. We must constantly be in good health. Health is therefore more valuable than material things. Here are a few sample essays on health is wealth.

100 Words Essay On Health Is Wealth

200 words essay on health is wealth, 500 words essay on health is wealth.

Health is Wealth Essay

Only excellent health accompanies us in both good and terrible circumstances, thus health is wealth. In difficult circumstances, no one in this world can assist us. Therefore, if our health is excellent, we can handle any difficult situation. In order to enjoy life, one must be healthy or else, they would have health-related or other challenges. We need to have a good lifestyle by eating a balanced diet, engaging in daily exercise, breathing fresh air and drinking clean water, maintaining excellent posture, getting adequate sleep and relaxation, and keeping ourselves clean in order to preserve good health. If one is unhealthy, one will have problems with their health or other aspects of life.

Health was once defined as “the ability of an organism to function normally”. However, the definition of health has evolved over time. Being healthy does not necessarily mean physical fitness. Rather, it refers to a state of health, including emotional, mental and social stability. Health is the source of true wealth. A healthy body contains key elements that are essential for the proper functioning of the body. Physical health is the first important factor. Physical well-being is the state of having a healthy body free from disease. People tend to live longer when their bodies are healthy.

A balanced diet is the best way to keep your body healthy. Consuming the right amount of nutrients you need gives you better control over your physical health. Regular exercise is the next very important factor. Don't forget to exercise, even for 10 minutes, to keep your body in shape. Eating junk food all the time is not a good idea. Consuming alcohol and smoking is harmful to your health. Finally, make it a daily priority to get enough sleep (7-8 hours) before using your phone. The best recommendation is to put your phone away two hours before bedtime.

You may have heard the phrase "health is wealth" as a child, but most people still don't understand what it means. Most people equate health with freedom from disease. It may be so in some cases, but health is much more than that. To live a healthy life, you need to be physically and mentally healthy. For example, if one eats junk food all the time and doesn't get sick, that person is not healthy.

In the last century, great efforts have been made to promote physical health. However, overcoming psychological challenges is still lagging behind. According to the World Health Organization, mental health problems account for 47% of disabilities in life when calculated as the number of days people are unable to function normally in their daily lives.

Importance Of Health

Maintaining good health is very important.

Longevity | A person's daily life is affected by an unhealthy lifestyle. Getting the right nutrients helps your body stay healthier and live longer.

Eliminate illness | The key to a healthy life is a strong immune system that can fight off many diseases. The immune system functions as the body's natural defence system against intruders that can harm the body. Maintaining physical and mental health is essential for complete well-being

Improved mental health | Poor mental health is the result of an unhealthy lifestyle. A healthy lifestyle calms the mind and lifts the spirit. Only mentally satisfied people can work efficiently. Physical and mental health of a person, are interdependent

Live a fruitful life | Healthy individuals contribute to society and nations. A person is considered healthy only if he is free from disease. That way, we may be able to provide a better service.

Economic benefit | Medical costs are rising. Only by investing in one's health in the early stages can one avoid or reduce the severity of the onset of illness. I can.

Achieving Good Health

Making healthy lifestyle changes can greatly improve your health.

By eating nutritious foods—diet has a huge impact on overall health. Our health is directly affected by what we eat. A nutritious diet strengthens your immune system and improves your overall health. Eating more fruits and vegetables is good for your health. It's important to stay hydrated and eat fewer animal products. Bone density and muscle strength are increased through regular exercise and physical activity. Regular physical activity has several benefits.

Adequate sleep is essential to maintaining good health. Getting the right amount of sleep at the right time improves physical and mental health and protects against various heart diseases.

Reducing your consumption of refined sugar has several positive health effects. Refined sugar contains empty calories, which can lead to weight gain and elevated blood sugar levels.

People will benefit from participating in all these activities and adopting a healthy lifestyle.

Health is becoming more and more important in today's life. Today, the world is full of electronic gadgets and technology that have a negative impact on our health. From an early age, schoolchildren suffer from many diseases caused by excessive use of computers, mobile phones and the Internet. People value wealth more and as a result become victims of disease and unhealthy lifestyles. However, they must understand that they can live without money but not without health.

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Federal insurance has helped many, but system’s holes limit gains, Harvard analysts say

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Fourth in a series on what Harvard scholars are doing to identify and understand inequality, in seeking solutions to one of America’s most vexing problems.

If you want to get an idea of the gap between the world’s sickest and healthiest people, don’t fly to a faraway land. Just look around the United States.

Health inequality is part of American life, so deeply entangled with other social problems — disparities in income , education , housing, race, gender, and even geography — that analysts have trouble saying which factors are cause and which are effect. The confusing result, they say, is a massive chicken-and-egg puzzle, its solution reaching beyond just health care. Because of that, everyday realities often determine whether people live in health or infirmity, to a ripe old age or early death.

“There are huge inequalities in this country that often get overlooked … If you want to observe the problems of poverty and inequality, you don’t need to travel all the way to Malawi. You can go to a rural house in America,” said Ichiro Kawachi, John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Social Epidemiology and chair of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. “If you’re born a black man in, let’s say, New Orleans Parish, your average life expectancy is worse than the male average of countries that are much poorer than America.”

Scholars say that inequality in health is actually three related problems. The first, and most critical, involves disparities in health itself: rates of asthma, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, drug abuse, violence, and other afflictions. The second problem involves disparities in care, including access to hospitals, clinics, doctors’ offices, skilled professionals, medical technology, essential medicine, and proper procedures to deal with illness and disease. The third problem, one that has grabbed national headlines in recent years, is inequality in health insurance, the financial means to pay for the care people get to stay well.

The three problems, scholars say, require interlaced solutions. President Obama’s signature health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), has taken important strides in narrowing the gap in health insurance coverage, but those gains so far have translated to limited advances in ensuring access to quality medical care and even less progress in making diverse groups equally healthy.

“That’s an area where there’s less progress and more disappointment,” said John McDonough, professor of the practice of public health at the Harvard Chan School. McDonough has worked on health care reform both in Massachusetts, which created the model for national care, and at the federal level.

Disparities are built into the health care landscape, but there has been great progress in recent decades, according to S.V. Subramanian, professor of population health and geography at the Harvard Chan School and the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies . Life expectancy is increasing for African-Americans and the poor, albeit at a lower rate than for wealthy whites. Although stark disparities remain, the overall health picture in this country is one of improvement, analysts say.

“I sometimes feel that the public health narrative is all doom and gloom, but that’s inaccurate,” Subramanian said.

Still, the remaining disparities are bell-clear in one of the bluntest measures of health: life expectancy, which varies, depending on a resident’s race and ethnicity, as much as 30 years between the richest and poorest U.S. counties. That gap, Kawachi said, covers about two-thirds of the range seen between the world’s healthiest and unhealthiest populations.

In addition, a new study by the Brookings Institution found that the gap has widened considerably. An upper-income man born in 1920, for example, could expect to live five years longer than someone at the lower end of the income spectrum. But for men born in 1940, that life-expectancy divide based on income has more than doubled, to 12 years.

Health disparities are a major reason why U.S. life expectancy trails many peer nations, Kawachi said. According to a 2014 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), U.S. life expectancy in 2012 was 78.7 years, 27th out of the group’s 34 industrialized democracies.

The fault line of income, and care

Health disparities form along several societal fault lines, but analysts say the deepest and most persistent divide surrounds income. America’s poor — of any race or ethnicity — are sicker than well-off Americans, Kawachi said. They get substandard care, live in poor housing and degraded environments, and have higher rates of suicide, violence, drug overdose, accidents, and smoking.

“It’s not only a question of racial disparities,” Kawachi said. “At the root of it are unequal economic opportunities, unequal education, and despair.”

Disparities due to poverty hurt racial and ethnic minorities more than other groups because they make up a large proportion of the poor. Not only do they have more ailments, but they often get worse care.

“If you’re having a heart attack, there are very standardized protocols. If you’re African-American, you’re less likely to get those, even with the same health insurance, even with the same presentation,” said Ashish Jha, the K.T. Li Professor of International Health, professor of medicine, and director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. “It’s things like that that trouble us.”

Disparities in health, Jha said, begin at birth for many African-Americans and persist through life.

“One thing we hoped is that the health care system would be part of the solution. What we find, over and over, is that not only does it not do that consistently, sometimes it makes things worse,” Jha said. “It’s obviously deeply disappointing.”

Though health professionals generally care deeply about their poor and minority patients, the problem nonetheless may be rooted in racism, according to David Williams, Florence Sprague Norman and Laura Smart Norman Professor of Public Health at the Harvard Chan School and professor of African and African-American studies in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

In a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Williams, along with colleague Ronald Wyatt, cited a 2003 Institute of Medicine report that labeled widespread “implicit bias” for differences in the care that African-Americans and other minorities receive. They said that substandard care leads to an estimated 260 premature African-American deaths each day.

“Insurance is not just supposed to get you access to care, it’s supposed to keep you from getting evicted from your apartment because you paid your hospital bill instead of your rent.” Katherine Baicker

“African-American individuals and those in other minority groups receive fewer procedures and poorer-quality medical care than white individuals,” Williams and Wyatt wrote. “These differences existed even after statistical adjustment for variations in health insurance, stage and severity of disease, income or education, comorbid disease, and the type of health care facility.”

The result of that disparity and others fuels another one: shorter life spans for African-Americans, according to Thomas McGuire, professor of health economics in Harvard Medical School’s (HMS) Department of Health Care Policy.

“In terms of health, there’s approximately a five-year penalty for being African-American compared to being a white male,” McGuire said.

While poverty, race, and ethnicity are key divides between wellness and ill health, another factor — often ignored — is geography, according to Katherine Baicker, C. Boyden Gray Professor of Health Economics at the Harvard Chan School and acting chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management.

Health disparities exist regionally across America — Southern states, for example, have poorer care, according to a 2014 government report. There also are smaller pockets of poverty, such as depressed urban areas.

“I think an important factor that is sometimes overlooked is there are a lot of observed disparities in care … based on income, race, or ethnicity, that are attributable to the quality of care in some parts of the country lagging behind other parts of the country,” Baicker said. “So it’s as much about where you live as what your characteristics are.”

Necessary, but not sufficient

Easily the most significant recent step to lessen health disparities came when Congress passed the ACA in 2010. The law requires people above a certain income to have health insurance, and it expands the Medicaid program to cover those who can’t afford it. A 2012 Supreme Court ruling created a significant pothole on the road to universal coverage, however, allowing states to opt out of the Medicaid expansion. That left 4 million poor Americans in 20 states ineligible and on their own.

“Under the ACA, we created a new structure where just about every American citizen and legal resident has access to some kind of affordable health insurance coverage, except for poor adults in states that have not accepted Medicaid expansion under the ACA,” McDonough said.

Despite that large pool of uncovered people, McDonough said, the ACA has clearly reduced health inequalities in much of the nation, particularly for minority and ethnic groups.

“The ACA has succeeded in taking a major step forward in reducing inequalities as pertains to access in health insurance coverage,” McDonough said. “It has not solved it, but it’s a major step forward.”

The act also has reduced disparities in medical care and in health status, according to McDonough and McGuire. By requiring insurance companies to cover people regardless of pre-existing conditions, it has worked to level the financial gap between the sick and the well.

Though researchers will require time to prove whether illness and chronic disease have dropped as a result, early studies — including one in 2012 by Benjamin Sommers and another last September led by Joshua Salomon, both at the Harvard Chan School — indicate that health insurance coverage can prevent tens of thousands of premature deaths and prompt more than 650,000 people to control chronic conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.

Substandard care leads to 260 premature African-American deaths daily.

“What’s fairly indisputable is that by expanding coverage to so many millions of otherwise uninsured Americans, we’re saving lives,” McDonough said.

McDonough said that Oregon presented researchers, led by the Chan School’s Baicker and Amy Finkelstein at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a natural experiment when it used a lottery to expand its Medicaid program in 2008. The lottery was a randomized control designed to show that people newly covered by Medicaid took advantage of more preventive care, prescription drugs, and doctors’ office visits to stay healthy, as well as more hospital stays and emergency department visits to treat worsening conditions. Their self-reported access to care and quality of care both rose. In addition, they reported better health and lower rates of depression.

The study did not show improvement in several measures of health involving chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes, Baicker said. But there was progress in improving patients’ financial stability. People covered by Medicaid had far fewer bills sent to collectors, and catastrophic out-of-pocket medical expenses were virtually eliminated.

“Having insurance improved access to care. It also provided financial protection, which is a component of insurance that people don’t talk about but which is really important,” Baicker said. “Insurance is not just supposed to get you access to care; it’s supposed to keep you from getting evicted from your apartment because you paid your hospital bill instead of your rent.”

While the ACA was designed to provide that stability nationally, it isn’t perfect, Jha said, and the endless partisan debate surrounding it in Washington, D.C., and in some states has blocked needed fixes, according to analysts. One provision of the measure that Jha finds troubling was supposed to improve patient care by penalizing hospitals with poor patient outcomes. But that provision, he said, backfires where large, urban, safety-net hospitals are involved. Since they serve a disproportionate number of poor people with chronic ailments, they often have worse outcomes that are unrelated to care.

“I do worry that it will worsen disparities,” Jha said. “There’s good empirical data; the penalties are disproportionately targeting safety-net” hospitals.

A multipronged approach

While the ACA was a giant step in bridging America’s health divide, analysts say that merely providing health insurance isn’t enough. Insurance helps equalize access to care, but disparities remain in the quality of that care. However, there are levers to tackle that problem too, according to Amitabh Chandra, Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS).

Identifying poor-quality facilities provides an opportunity for rapid improvement by bringing best practices to bear, Chandra said. Baicker agreed, saying such targeted interventions can prove both effective and inexpensive.

“Part of it is about resources,” Baicker said. “There’s also fairly strong evidence that quality could be improved without costing a lot of money in some places, where best practices are not being implemented. Sometimes, it’s not clear what the right thing to do is. But sometimes it is, and our system does not generate high-quality care and best practices nearly as consistently as we would like it to.”

Government-led, policy-driven shifts on health care have led to dramatic improvements in the past and could again, Chandra said. When U.S. hospitals were desegregated in the 1960s, there was “overnight” improvement in African-American infant mortality. Similarly, Chandra said, new technology could help disadvantaged populations by improving their care condition by condition. The discovery of surfactants, for example, helped all premature babies breathe better, but benefitted African-American babies in particular because they were more often premature.

Similarly, McGuire said, attitudinal health reforms, such as against stereotypes and race-related disparities, could create a wide ripple effect. “Activation” training, during which patients from disadvantaged populations are encouraged to question physicians and immerse themselves in their own care, could improve their interactions in everyday life as well.

“The next time they interact with someone outside the health care system, this is going to help them there, too,” McGuire said.

Targeting the factors influencing health

While policy shifts can be powerful tools against health inequities, Subramanian said that such initiatives should be aimed not at outcomes, but earlier in the chain at the factors influencing health. “From a health perspective, the most important thing to think about would be inequalities in opportunities that are health-promoting, rather than inequalities in health outcomes per se,” Subramanian said.

Another helpful policy change would relax America’s relatively stingy family-leave and sick-time policies, Kawachi said.

“If you’re having a heart attack, there are very standardized protocols. If you’re African-American, you’re less likely to get those, even with the same health insurance, even with the same presentation.” Ashish Jha

Among its less-publicized features, the ACA promotes “accountable care organizations,” whose financial rewards are linked to better patient outcomes rather than to just providing treatment, thereby linking financial success to patient health.

“Many health care providers are acutely aware of the inadequacy of the office visit alone to improve population health,” Baicker said. “They sometimes lack flexibility [to try new things and] they sometimes lack resources. To the extent that they can be given flexibility, coupled with responsibility [for population health], that’s an avenue toward better disease management and health promotion.”

But eliminating health disparities outright remains problematic because some causes lie outside the care system. Poor education often leads to low-wage jobs, leading to substandard housing and poor diets and smoking, further leading to diabetes and asthma. So any overarching solution would require massive breadth.

“Health insurance affects health care. Health care affects health. But there are other things that affect health,” Baicker said, including social determinants, quality food, proper exercise, and wise behavior. “Being poor is really hard on your health in and of itself. Then having limited access to health care is another big hit. But there are lots of things about poverty that are harmful to health that really have nothing to do with health care per se.”

Addressing those social and behavioral factors would require government officials and community leaders to think innovatively and cooperatively about the everyday realities that affect health, even down to the designs of neighborhoods and transportation systems. There would have to be more flexibility for health care spending to help, for example, an asthmatic child whose medication might be covered but whose need for an air conditioner is not. Physicians would need to be aware of nonmedical pressures that patients face after leaving their offices that might, for instance, leave them without transportation to follow-up appointments or to pharmacies for medicine. Partner organizations would need to help meet routine needs by such things as grocery shopping and cooking for postoperative patients who are well enough to go home, but can’t yet push carts down store aisles.

“It’s not just about what we do in the hospital, what we do in the doctor’s office. It’s about all the things that happen outside of it,” Jha said. “We’ve come to realize that whole processes are important … not just prescribing right.”

Nancy Oriol, HMS dean of students, has been part of a 24-year experiment to hurdle some of those barriers, seeing patients as whole people and meeting them literally where they live.

As director of obstetric anesthesia for Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in the 1980s, Oriol became concerned about infant mortality rates in the poor neighborhoods near Boston’s Longwood section, where HMS and several of its most prominent affiliate hospitals are located.

She and Cheryl Dorsey, then a third-year medical student, began to develop a mobile clinic, the Family Van, that provides basic health education, screenings, and referrals to residents of poor neighborhoods. Though Oriol no longer works on van issues day-to-day, she is probing how the nation’s estimated 2,000 mobile clinics can fill a gap in America’s health care network.

Early on, she hoped that the Family Van would become obsolete as the health care system improved. But now Oriol sees the mobile clinics as an emerging sector, a permanent player with their own mission.

“I actually have come to believe that mobile clinics are not a bridge over a gap, but a different form of health care,” Oriol said. “It is the health care that brings you health in the same place that you live your life.”

60 million with little primary care

In another example of fresh thinking, at HMS’s five-year-old Center for Primary Care, co-director Andrew Ellner, an assistant professor of medicine, is tackling a root cause of health disparities: poor primary care.

According to a 2009 report by the National Association of Community Health Centers, a whopping 60 million Americans lack adequate access to primary care. Ellner said that even people who do have access are often poorly served by what they get.

“I think the lack of primary care certainly is part of the problem, but it is also a reflection of the problem,” Ellner said. “There’s less primary care because there’s less financing available to offer care to disadvantaged patient populations.”

Good primary care requires correct responses to illnesses, injuries, and other conditions, coupled with strong preventive medicine, including administering vaccines and routine screenings, while encouraging healthy diet and exercise. Another critical factor, Ellner said, is properly coordinating care with other providers, including specialists, therapists, and technicians.

“That’s especially important in the U.S. because the health care system is fragmented, and people can get lost. We have to make sure they don’t fall through the cracks,” he said. “It’s definitely part of the solution. Primary care is really on the front lines of health care. It’s a critical factor in making the health system work — not just in providing care, but also in making it accessible to people.”

Internationally, the United States has a reputation as a country with poor primary care. That reality is a significant factor in high health care costs, even though, Ellner said, there are pockets of excellence that provide primary care as good as anywhere in the world. The challenge, he said, is to scale up those examples nationally and make them the rule rather than the exception.

A team approach to care

In another shift, the HMS center has partnered with seven Harvard-affiliated health systems to install a team-based approach to care. The teams, which are being tested in 28 Boston-area practices serving 300,000 patients, include physicians, nurses, social workers, community health workers, and pharmacy technicians.

“Physicians are important, but a lot of primary-care functions should be filled by non-physicians,” Ellner said. “The real fix [to U.S. primary care] will be, over time, to change the ratio of primary care and specialist physicians … [and] to fundamentally change the organization of primary care into a team approach that allows doctors to focus on the parts of health care for which they are uniquely trained: complex diagnosis and management.”

Possible solutions to health care inequality

  • Earlier diagnoses of ailments
  • Universal health insurance
  • Better patient education
  • More preventive care
  • Fewer penalties on safety-net hospitals
  • Monitoring, upgrading struggling facilities
  • Wider access to technology
  • Stronger primary care
  • Broader family-, sick-leave policies
  • Social systems supporting health
  • Team approaches to care

Larger social factors play a role in health. Kawachi said studies have shown that preschool programs deliver $1.17 of benefits for each $1 invested. Since poverty is a root cause of health disparities, an increase in the federal minimum wage — which at $7.25 an hour leaves a family of four well below the federal poverty line ― would prove a health boon as well, he said.

The ACA recognizes the need to address the exterior causes of health disparities, McDonough said, but those aspects of the law haven’t been taken seriously. For instance, political opponents have attacked the $15 million Prevention and Public Health Trust Fund that provides grants to address poor housing, air quality, and lack of exercise, calling the spending wasteful. Legislators have cut a third of its funds.

“It has been under constant, ruthless assault by opponents of the law as fluff, as paying for jungle gym sets,” McDonough said. “Public health and public health programs have always taken a beating in difficult economic times. There was hope that the ACA represented the dawn of a new day and we would break out of that cycle. That hasn’t happened.”

Despite the endless political tug-of-war over the ACA , Baicker believes that there will be more opportunities soon to experiment with health care reforms, if only to slow cost increases, which have picked up speed.

“There are a lot of positive developments, but I don’t think anybody would argue that we solved this problem,” Baicker said. “There are serious financial problems with the health care system that necessitate bigger change than we’ve seen so far.”

Illustration by Kathleen M.G. Howlett.

Next Tuesday: Inequality in law

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Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Childhood Obesity — Importance Of Good Health

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Importance of Good Health

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  • Health is Wealth

Health is Wealth Essay

500+ words essay on health is wealth.

The proverb ‘Health is Wealth’ is highly popular, indicating the significance of “Health” to us. However, the proverb’s true meaning is lost now, as many believe that just being free of any illness makes for a healthy life. But, that’s not all that good health is all about. A person has to be fit not just physically but mentally as well, to be known as completely healthy. Other aspects adding to it are emotional and social health, as well. This “Health is Wealth Essay” is an essential topic for essay writing, and students can read on to know how to score well in English essays.

Essay on Health is Wealth Proverb In English

A definition of health includes your physical, mental, emotional and social well-being. To maintain a healthy lifestyle, you will have to follow these tips given in the health is wealth paragraph below.

Vital Aspects of a Health is Wealth Lifestyle

You need to understand that to write an essay on “Health Is Wealth”, you need to include the below-given points.

  • Consistent habit and a disciplined life helps to maintain a healthy lifestyle
  • Enhancing your appearance helps to boost your confidence and mental health
  • Exercise helps to burn out extra fat and keeps you happy
  • Strengthen your immune system so that you don’t fall ill often
  • Cleanliness is another factor that adds to a healthy lifestyle
  • Clean surroundings help to avoid the risk of infectious diseases
  • Taking proper rest is another factor that allows us to lead a healthy lifestyle

Advantages of a Healthy Lifestyle

Having a healthy lifestyle is the key to being happy. It also helps to motivate you to achieve higher targets. Meanwhile, all the luxuries in this world are useless if you do not get well soon. While money may buy you good things in life, it does not guarantee a healthy life for you. You are solely responsible for that. You should also avoid junk food if you wish to lead a very healthy, happy life. Undue stress should also be avoided. One main advantage of leading a healthy habit is that it brings positivity to your life, leading to longevity and success. It is imperative to balance your life and work to attain a healthy lifestyle, free from mental stress .

Thus, we can see that maintaining a healthy and active mind and body is the key to balancing your daily activities. Meanwhile, the greed for luxury and wealth creation has also resulted in health-related issues for many. Being able to stay fit and healthy is indeed a blessing. Tips to attain this are discussed here in this ‘Health is Wealth’ essay in English.

Read more: Independence Day Essay | Women Empowerment | Essay On Constitution of India

Frequently Asked Questions on Health is wealth Essay

What is the meaning of the phrase ‘health is wealth’.

It refers to the fact that the health of a person is the most valuable and precious thing he can have.

How to stay healthy?

You can maintain your health by exercising regularly, eating homemade and balanced food, avoiding saturated fats and relaxing your mind by focusing on living stress-free.

What are the benefits of a healthy lifestyle?

Benefits of a healthy lifestyle are decreased risk of illness, higher immunity, stress-free life and a positive mindset.

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  • Health is Wealth Essay

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Importance of Working Towards Good Health

Health is God’s gift to us. Health refers to the physical and mental state of a human being. To stay healthy is not an option but a necessity to live a happy life. The basic laws of good health are related to the food we eat, the amount of physical exercise we do, our cleanliness, rest, and relaxation. A healthy person is normally more confident, self-assured, sociable, and energetic. A healthy person views things calmly, and without prejudice.

Introduction

“The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered "Man! Because he sacrifices his health to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.” This signifies that individuals don’t prioritise their mental health to earn money. Some even work 24 hours a day or seven days a week. 

However, you have the option to remain balanced. So, balance work and fitness daily. Always strive to keep a cheerful as well as a concentrated routine. It is necessary to plan ahead of time. In any case, one must maintain a good mental, bodily, and emotional state, and no professional or counsellor can assist you unless you desire to live. The will to live in the moment and make the most of it awakens the ideal strength within you, and you are the only one who can never let yourself fall apart. 

Importance of Maintaining Health

We live in a super-fast age. The Internet has shrunk the world dramatically and people are connected 24x7. Multitasking is the order of the day, as we struggle to fulfill our responsibilities for everyone in life. In this fight, we often forget to spare time for ourselves. The stress levels continue to build up until one day a major collapse may make us realize that in all this hectic activity, we have forgotten to take care of one important thing – our health.  

As we spend days shuttling between hospital and home, putting our body through one test after another, trying to find out what has gone wrong, we are forced to remember that ‘Health is indeed Wealth’.  

In earlier days, life was very simple. People worked for a stipulated time, often walked everywhere, ate more homemade food, did household chores, and enjoyed a healthy balance in life.  

Now people have cars and bikes to commute, so they walk less. With the demand for more working hours, people are awake till late at night and indulge in more junk food than home-cooked food. Modern equipment at home has reduced the labour work and increased dependency on this equipment.  People don’t have enough time to exercise or even get enough sunlight. Nowadays people are living very unhealthy lifestyles.  

Unhealthy living conditions have increased the contraction of people to various diseases like obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, hypertension, etc. This has alarming implications in the near future. So it is very important to focus on our health as much as we focus on our work. Moderation in food habits, daily exercise, and balanced work-life can surely make a big difference to our health and body. When a person stays mentally and physically fit, his actions and decisions are more practical and logical and hence he is more successful in life. Furthermore, good health has a direct impact on our personality.

It's crucial to consider how much self-control you have to keep a healthy lifestyle. Research reveals that changing one's behaviour and daily patterns are quite tough. According to the data, whether a person has a habit of smoking, drinking alcohol, doing drugs, or any other substance, it is extremely difficult to quit. A study found that 80% of smokers who tried to quit failed, with only 46% succeeding.

Importance of Good Health 

A healthy body has all the major components that help in the proper functioning of the body. The essential component is the state of physical health. Your life term extends when you maintain good physical fitness. If you are committed to exercising with a sensible diet, then you can develop a sense of well-being and can even prevent yourself from chronic illness, disability, and premature death.  

Some of the benefits of increased physical activity are as follows. 

It Improves Our Health  

1. It increases the efficiency of the heart and lungs. 

2. A good walk can reduce cholesterol levels.  

3. Good exercise increases muscle strength. 

4. It reduces blood pressure. 

5. It reduces the risk of major illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease.

Improved Sense of Well-being  

1. It helps in developing more energy. 

2. It reduces stress levels. 

3. Quality of sleep improves. 

4. It helps in developing the ability to cope with stress. 

5. It increases mental sharpness. 

Improved Appearances  

1. Weight loss contributes to a good physique.  

2. Toned muscles generate more energy. 

3. Improved posture enhances our appearance. 

Enhanced Social Life  

1. It improves self-image 

2. It increases opportunities to make new friends. 

3. It increases opportunities to share an activity with friends or family members. 

Increased Stamina  

1. Increased productivity. 

2. Increased physical capabilities. 

3. Less frequent injuries. 

4. Improved immunity to minor illnesses. 

Along with physical fitness, a good mental state is also essential for good health. Mental health means the emotional and psychological state of an individual. The best way to maintain good mental health is by staying positive and meditating. 

However, unlike a machine, the body needs rest at regular intervals. A minimum of six to seven hours of sleep is necessary for the body to function optimally. Drinking plenty of water and a balanced diet is also very important for your body.  If you violate the basic laws of good health, like working late hours, ignoring physical exercise, eating junk food, it will lead to various ailments like hypertension, heart attacks, and other deadly diseases. 

What is National Health Day? 

Every year on April 7th, World Health Day is celebrated. The World Health Organization (WHO) hosted the inaugural World Health Day on April 7, 1950, to draw the entire world’s attention to global health. 

Every year, the World Health Organization (WHO) comes up with a new theme for public awareness, such as "Support Nurses and Midwives" in 2020. This supports the situation of COVID-19, where healthcare workers are saving lives day and night without worrying about their health.

The WHO also operates a global health promotion initiative to align equality so that individuals can take control of their lives, "every life matters," and consider their fitness. The government promotes numerous health policies, including food security, workplace quality, and health literacy, in schools, colleges, workplaces, and various community activities. 

Good Health for Children 

Children need to maintain good physical and mental health. With an increase in the pressure of studies and over-indulgence in modern gadgets, children are losing the most precious thing, which is health. These days, they barely play in the playgrounds, they are more inclined towards junk food and spend more time on the screen. These unhealthy activities are slowly sabotaging their health. Parents should concentrate on the physical and mental health of their children, and inculcate good habits for maintaining a healthy lifestyle from a tender age.   

Cleanliness also has a major role to play in maintaining good health. Taking a bath every day, washing hands before eating meals, brushing twice a day, changing clothes regularly, etc. are important habits to maintain good health.  

Society is witnessing gloomy faces as a result of children and their parents' excessive usage of a computer, mobile phone, and the Internet. They are constantly using these technological items, oblivious to the fact that they may harm their health. Teenagers are frequently discovered engrossed in their electronic devices, resulting in mishaps. 

The usage of electronic devices frequently results in anxiety and hostility. Excessive usage of these products has been linked to cancer, vision loss, weight gain, and insomnia. 

Emotional development is another crucial component that should not be disregarded because it determines whether or not a person is healthy. An emotionally healthy person should have a solid sense of logic, realisation, and a realistic outlook. 

Conclusion 

Health is Wealth because if we are not healthy then all our wealth, fame and power can bring no enjoyment. Keeping fit and healthy is indeed not an option but a necessity.  

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FAQs on Health is Wealth Essay

1. Why is Health Considered as Wealth?

Health is wealth because it is one of God’s most precious gift to human beings. Good health refers to a balanced and healthy physical and mental state of an individual. If any individual is not healthy, wealth, fame, and power can bring no enjoyment. So health has more value than materialistic things.

2. When is World Health Day Celebrated?

World Health Day is celebrated on 7 th April to raise awareness about health and fitness.

3. How Can You Maintain Good Health?

You can maintain good health by following a balanced and healthy diet. Have a good lifestyle by balancing work and life. You should have a moderate physical fitness regime every day. Go for brisk walks regularly or do other forms of exercise. Also, meditate and be positive to take care of your mental health.

4. Who came up with the phrase "health is wealth"?

If a man begins to live a lifestyle without a plan or unhealthy manner, he will confront numerous difficulties. He'd be depressed on the inside, untidy and filthy on the outside, and emotionally unstable all the time. A person who lives an unhealthy lifestyle will wake up late at night and early in the morning. Not only would this affect their mental condition, but it would also poison their surroundings. 

There would be a lot of wrath and sadness, and they would have fits from time to time.

Jade Wu Ph.D.

Can Money Really Buy Happiness?

Money and happiness are related—but not in the way you think..

Updated November 10, 2023 | Reviewed by Chloe Williams

  • More money is linked to increased happiness, some research shows.
  • People who won the lottery have greater life satisfaction, even years later.
  • Wealth is not associated with happiness globally; non-material things are more likely to predict wellbeing.
  • Money, in and of itself, cannot buy happiness, but it can provide a means to the things we value in life.

Money is a big part of our lives, our identities, and perhaps our well-being. Sometimes, it can feel like your happiness hinges on how much cash is in your bank account. Have you ever thought to yourself, “If only I could increase my salary by 12 percent, I’d feel better”? How about, “I wish I had an inheritance. How easier life would be!” I don’t blame you — I’ve had the same thoughts many times.

But what does psychological research say about the age-old question: Can money really buy happiness? Let’s take a brutally honest exploration of how money and happiness are (and aren’t) related. (Spoiler alert: I’ve got bad news, good news, and lots of caveats.)

Higher earners are generally happier

Over 10 years ago, a study based on Gallup Poll data on 1,000 people made a big headline in the news. It found that people with higher incomes report being happier... but only up to an annual income of $75,000 (equivalent to about $90,000 today). After this point, a high emotional well-being wasn’t directly correlated to more money. This seemed to show that once a persons’ basic (and some “advanced”) needs are comfortably met, more money isn’t necessary for well-being.

Shift Drive / Shutterstock

But a new 2021 study of over one million participants found that there’s no such thing as an inflection point where more money doesn’t equal more happiness, at least not up to an annual salary of $500,000. In this study, participants’ well-being was measured in more detail. Instead of being asked to remember how well they felt in the past week, month, or year, they were asked how they felt right now in the moment. And based on this real-time assessment, very high earners were feeling great.

Similarly, a Swedish study on lottery winners found that even after years, people who won the lottery had greater life satisfaction, mental health, and were more prepared to face misfortune like divorce , illness, and being alone than regular folks who didn’t win the lottery. It’s almost as if having a pile of money made those things less difficult to cope with for the winners.

Evaluative vs. experienced well-being

At this point, it's important to suss out what researchers actually mean by "happiness." There are two major types of well-being psychologists measure: evaluative and experienced. Evaluative well-being refers to your answer to, “How do you think your life is going?” It’s what you think about your life. Experienced well-being, however, is your answer to, “What emotions are you feeling from day to day, and in what proportions?” It is your actual experience of positive and negative emotions.

In both of these studies — the one that found the happiness curve to flatten after $75,000 and the one that didn't — the researchers were focusing on experienced well-being. That means there's a disagreement in the research about whether day-to-day experiences of positive emotions really increase with higher and higher incomes, without limit. Which study is more accurate? Well, the 2021 study surveyed many more people, so it has the advantage of being more representative. However, there is a big caveat...

Material wealth is not associated with happiness everywhere in the world

If you’re not a very high earner, you may be feeling a bit irritated right now. How unfair that the rest of us can’t even comfort ourselves with the idea that millionaires must be sad in their giant mansions!

But not so fast.

Yes, in the large million-person study, experienced well-being (aka, happiness) did continually increase with higher income. But this study only included people in the United States. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that our culture is quite materialistic, more so than other countries, and income level plays a huge role in our lifestyle.

Another study of Mayan people in a poor, rural region of Yucatan, Mexico, did not find the level of wealth to be related to happiness, which the participants had high levels of overall. Separately, a Gallup World Poll study of people from many countries and cultures also found that, although higher income was associated with higher life evaluation, it was non-material things that predicted experienced well-being (e.g., learning, autonomy, respect, social support).

Earned wealth generates more happiness than inherited wealth

More good news: For those of us with really big dreams of “making it” and striking it rich through talent and hard work, know that the actual process of reaching your dream will not only bring you cash but also happiness. A study of ultra-rich millionaires (net worth of at least $8,000,000) found that those who earned their wealth through work and effort got more of a happiness boost from their money than those who inherited it. So keep dreaming big and reaching for your entrepreneurial goals … as long as you’re not sacrificing your actual well-being in the pursuit.

money or health essay

There are different types of happiness, and wealth is better for some than others

We’ve been talking about “happiness” as if it’s one big thing. But happiness actually has many different components and flavors. Think about all the positive emotions you’ve felt — can we break them down into more specifics? How about:

  • Contentment
  • Gratefulness

...and that's just a short list.

It turns out that wealth may be associated with some of these categories of “happiness,” specifically self-focused positive emotions such as pride and contentment, whereas less wealthy people have more other-focused positive emotions like love and compassion.

In fact, in the Swedish lottery winners study, people’s feelings about their social well-being (with friends, family, neighbors, and society) were no different between lottery winners and regular people.

Money is a means to the things we value, not happiness itself

One major difference between lottery winners and non-winners, it turns out, is that lottery winners have more spare time. This is the thing that really makes me envious , and I would hypothesize that this is the main reason why lottery winners are more satisfied with their life.

Consider this simply: If we had the financial security to spend time on things we enjoy and value, instead of feeling pressured to generate income all the time, why wouldn’t we be happier?

This is good news. It’s a reminder that money, in and of itself, cannot literally buy happiness. It can buy time and peace of mind. It can buy security and aesthetic experiences, and the ability to be generous to your family and friends. It makes room for other things that are important in life.

In fact, the researchers in that lottery winner study used statistical approaches to benchmark how much happiness winning $100,000 brings in the short-term (less than one year) and long-term (more than five years) compared to other major life events. For better or worse, getting married and having a baby each give a bigger short-term happiness boost than winning money, but in the long run, all three of these events have the same impact.

What does this mean? We make of our wealth and our life what we will. This is especially true for the vast majority of the world made up of people struggling to meet basic needs and to rise out of insecurity. We’ve learned that being rich can boost your life satisfaction and make it easier to have positive emotions, so it’s certainly worth your effort to set goals, work hard, and move towards financial health.

But getting rich is not the only way to be happy. You can still earn health, compassion, community, love, pride, connectedness, and so much more, even if you don’t have a lot of zeros in your bank account. After all, the original definition of “wealth” referred to a person’s holistic wellness in life, which means we all have the potential to be wealthy... in body, mind, and soul.

Kahneman, D., & Deaton, A.. High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being. . Proceedings of the national academy of sciences. 2010.

Killingsworth, M. A. . Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,000 per year .. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2021.

Lindqvist, E., Östling, R., & Cesarini, D. . Long-run effects of lottery wealth on psychological well-being. . The Review of Economic Studies. 2020.

Guardiola, J., González‐Gómez, F., García‐Rubio, M. A., & Lendechy‐Grajales, Á.. Does higher income equal higher levels of happiness in every society? The case of the Mayan people. . International Journal of Social Welfare. 2013.

Diener, E., Ng, W., Harter, J., & Arora, R. . Wealth and happiness across the world: material prosperity predicts life evaluation, whereas psychosocial prosperity predicts positive feeling. . Journal of personality and social psychology. 2010.

Donnelly, G. E., Zheng, T., Haisley, E., & Norton, M. I.. The amount and source of millionaires’ wealth (moderately) predict their happiness . . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 2018.

Piff, P. K., & Moskowitz, J. P. . Wealth, poverty, and happiness: Social class is differentially associated with positive emotions.. Emotion. 2018.

Jade Wu Ph.D.

Jade Wu, Ph.D., is a clinical health psychologist and host of the Savvy Psychologist podcast. She specializes in helping those with sleep problems and anxiety disorders.

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Essay on Health for Students and Children

500+ words essay on health.

Essay on Health: Health was earlier said to be the ability of the body functioning well. However, as time evolved, the definition of health also evolved. It cannot be stressed enough that health is the primary thing after which everything else follows. When you maintain good health , everything else falls into place.

essay on health

Similarly, maintaining good health is dependent on a lot of factors. It ranges from the air you breathe to the type of people you choose to spend your time with. Health has a lot of components that carry equal importance. If even one of them is missing, a person cannot be completely healthy.

Constituents of Good Health

First, we have our physical health. This means being fit physically and in the absence of any kind of disease or illness . When you have good physical health, you will have a longer life span. One may maintain their physical health by having a balanced diet . Do not miss out on the essential nutrients; take each of them in appropriate quantities.

Secondly, you must exercise daily. It may be for ten minutes only but never miss it. It will help your body maintain physical fitness. Moreover, do not consume junk food all the time. Do not smoke or drink as it has serious harmful consequences. Lastly, try to take adequate sleep regularly instead of using your phone.

Next, we talk about our mental health . Mental health refers to the psychological and emotional well-being of a person. The mental health of a person impacts their feelings and way of handling situations. We must maintain our mental health by being positive and meditating.

Subsequently, social health and cognitive health are equally important for the overall well-being of a person. A person can maintain their social health when they effectively communicate well with others. Moreover, when a person us friendly and attends social gatherings, he will definitely have good social health. Similarly, our cognitive health refers to performing mental processes effectively. To do that well, one must always eat healthily and play brain games like Chess, puzzles and more to sharpen the brain.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Physical Health Alone is Not Everything

There is this stigma that surrounds mental health. People do not take mental illnesses seriously. To be completely fit, one must also be mentally fit. When people completely discredit mental illnesses, it creates a negative impact.

For instance, you never tell a person with cancer to get over it and that it’s all in their head in comparison to someone dealing with depression . Similarly, we should treat mental health the same as physical health.

Parents always take care of their children’s physical needs. They feed them with nutritious foods and always dress up their wounds immediately. However, they fail to notice the deteriorating mental health of their child. Mostly so, because they do not give it that much importance. It is due to a lack of awareness amongst people. Even amongst adults, you never know what a person is going through mentally.

Thus, we need to be able to recognize the signs of mental illnesses . A laughing person does not equal a happy person. We must not consider mental illnesses as a taboo and give it the attention it deserves to save people’s lives.

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Health Vs. Wealth: A Healthy Life Is More Important Than Money

Wealth Vs Health

Is health more important than money ? We hear this question quite frequently and wonder, what is actually more preferable.

In a two words sentence, I would say, ‘ health is better than wealth . Why? Do not worry because we will be discussing the matter in detail in this post.

However, let’s get to know health a little before we stress on why it’s more important than money.

The word health refers to a situation of comprehensive emotional and physical well-being. In 2009, a medical publication defined health as the ability of the human body to conform to new threats and infirmities.

Mental and physical health are probably the two most commonly discussed types of health. Spiritual and emotional health also contribute to overall health.

Medical experts have linked these to lower stress levels and improved mental and physical well-being.

Now, let’s go and answer our question, health vs. wealth , which is important?

Table of Contents

Why Is Health More Important Than Wealth?

Health is what a person needs the most in the world to strive for great wealth and the future. No renunciation. On the other hand, wealth is what a person desires the most to provide ease and steady productivity.

Cannot reject this notion as well. So, we have to settle that these two are essentials in maintaining a great life-living balance .

Both of the elements go hand in hand for a desirable life.

However, apart from these two being important, health is never an equal thing as with wealth. You are blessed to have good health and decent wealth, but imagine one day you own everything, but health is not one.

Frightening! Right?

Health without further argument is the most incredible blessing a person could get and is important than wealth because:

Without Health, You Cannot Make Money

This is the biggest reason of all. To a certain degree, ironically, wealthy people seem to comprehend this best. If you look at the behaviors of successful people , many of them orbit around meditation, nutritious-diet, exercise, and taking time out for friends and family.

They recognize that they cannot reach the peak of productivity in their money-making ventures without taking care of their health.

If you are paying a lot of time and energy managing a chronic illness, or even the effects of stress on your body and mind, you are not able to be fully committed to achieving other goals in life. It is as simple as that.

Money Cannot Eventually Make You Happy

Study after study has revealed that having a lot of money does not necessarily make you happy.

A recent report presented that an income of $60,000 to $75,000 per year is ideal for emotional well-being.

While society is continually trying to keep up with maintaining social status, learning to be content with what you have can bring you more happiness as compared to earning more money. And if you are participating in a never-ending social status race, there is always a new level to compare when you reach one.

Concentrating on all the different aspects of health (physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual) is much more beneficial to your happiness in the long run than a number in your bank account.

Money Cannot Buy health

Why good health is important?   Good health gives you the time, energy, and drive to make extra money, with few exceptions, it does not work the other way around.

You cannot neglect your health over a 40-year career and then expect to get it back by throwing money at it.

Rendering to a recent research from Harvard , the U.S. spends $9,400 per capita on healthcare, compared to $5,400 in other high-income countries.

The insistent pursuit of wealth, or just trying to keep up with our peers, is a constant source of stress and busyness in our lives. And often, when we do reach the peak, we desperately realize we would gladly trade our wealth for the holistic health we had been ignoring for so long.

Why good health is important

Health Ensures Happiness And Longevity At All Stages Of Age

When you are getting older, particularly when you are retired, you will agree on this one. When you are older, tired, and health restricted, you would want health more than everything in the world.

You would want your grandchildren playing happily at your house lawn under the clouded sunny skies and you being a part of their energetic play. At the same time, you and your already grown-up kids would sit by the coffee table, reminiscing the old days together.

It is all possible with good health. No amount of wealth can bring back the energetic spirit that you once had.

Health Is the Greatest Wealth

Good health would give you many returns than money. To enjoy the beauties of life, health is way more important than money.

It is because there is no limit to money, the more you have, the stronger will be the desire to get more.

Even if you could get more money than you can handle, you would still feel unsatisfied.

However, this is not the case with health. There is no greed related to health achievement.

When you are healthy, it impacts all aspects of your life and is the actual source of bringing betterment in all areas of life, including financial.

So, yes. Health is wealth because nothing is enjoyable in life if you are not in good health, no matter how much money you have. Eventually, you will end up compromising it for your health, once if it is gone.

health is better than wealth

With knowing the importance of health over wealth , the next question arises:

How To Maintain Good Health?

Focusing on making wealth is unmistakably ambitious and useful, but remember to take care of your health as it is vital to achieve and maintain a great balance in life.

Here are some of our tips to maintain good health:

  • Talk a walk regularly.
  • Get proper and quality sleep.
  • Consume a healthy diet full of essential vitamins, fats, and all good stuff.
  • Spare time for your hobbies and enjoy them.
  • Set yourself as a priority.

Final Thoughts

No matter how much workload you have, when your body starts giving you signs of tiredness and exhaustion, always prefer your body.

It will ensure your health in the long run and enable you to do and achieve what you want to in life. So, when it comes to money or wealth , our bet is on health. Read more articles about iron foods

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Wealth More Important Than Health (Essay Sample)

Wealth more important than health.

Health refers to the physical, mental, physiological and emotional well-being of an individual. Ideally, it is a gift from God, and it cannot be influenced by affluence or hierarchical status in the universe. Every living creature should examine their health and appreciate God every time they have it. It is the single most blessing that wealth cannot influence. Occasionally, the greed caused by the extreme pursuit of wealth and material possession may damage the spiritual conscience in people. However, it is possible to conquer the whole world but fail to see the light of day due to deteriorated health status.

Philosophers have critiqued why some people would value wealth than their health. Most importantly, when a person has languished in poverty for long, then they tend to worship wealth over his life. Wealth is of particular importance to promote healthy living standards though it should come second to good health. People need money to fulfil their lavish desires. Though wealth can influence individuals’ health, buy medicine and food. Buy clothes and fruits. Build or rent high-end cars for a comfortable lifestyle. Access to the small pleasures of life alongside tight security. The ugliest truth is that wealth can never be a fundamental priority over health.

According to philosophers’ dispensation of wisdom and knowledge, health is more paramount than wealth. Critically, health is the necessary condition regardless of the status. However, wealth is a choice which can either be temporary or permanent in individuals’ lives. Fruitful and happy lifestyle can be achieved only with good health. Additional wealth may be needed to achieve the long dreams and desires in life. Though it is optional and one can decide to live without them. The inevitable idea here is that people need health to plan and execute their minds. Wealth will just hasten an individual to meet an obligation.

Wealth is a temporary status that can be achieved once a person is healthy. More fundamentally, one must have a stable and sound mind to achieve and acquire sufficiently enough wealth necessary for happy living. On the other hand, nobody has entitlement for good health despite the possessions. There are emerging illnesses with no cure yet people have money and right of access to various technological services. Indeed wealth does not always translate to healthy and happy living. In facts, accruing more wealth in the society makes people feel unsafe. Living with fears of the unknown since they can be kidnapped may speedily harm their health and kill them slowly. Also, without having everlasting peace and relaxed, how can one enjoy their wealth? It is true that where there is health, there is life. However, wealthy individuals have uneasy feelings of safety which deny them good health.

Getting and sustaining wealth is another stress in many families today. In most cases, people get very committed to acquiring wealth. Some even persevere the jail term and forget how to enjoy the little wealth. Others are too busy to gain wealth and ignore about their health. Indeed, the pursuit of wealth may negatively influence the spiritual and physical health of people. The greatest problem with this is that the possession may simply benefit the heirs and not the primary owner.

Finally, according to the sociologists’ reports, healthy people have a longer lifespan and happy lifestyle than rich cartels. Money pressure often consumes the cartels. Their wealth and possessions often make their life uncomfortable because they have to foresee every possible eventuality. Their mind and conscience will forever think of how to generate extra income and protect them. The misconception that money could enhance healthy living is erroneous. It is unfortunate that young men struggle to earn much but waste all the money on treatment.

In conclusion and based on the above facts and pieces of evidence, it is better to be healthy rather than being wealthy. With good health, one can do everything to meet their demands and get rich. However, it is erroneous to work hard, forget the health and later spent the entire saving inpatient. Most importantly, it is good to remember always that money cannot buy health.

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money or health essay

19. nur wafa. Dilpoma in English. Sultan Idris Education University. Love to learn English. addicted to black. Dream. Believe. Create. Success.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Argumentative essay – health or wealth, which is better.

money or health essay

21 comments:

money or health essay

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Health is better than wealth for me. Why? Because I consider Life existence as vital. Which of the two choices is necessary to continue human's life on earth? It's Healthy. According to Solomon's words of wisdom. A live dog is better than a dead Lion. Meaning to say that Life is more important. Now the question is. Which one of the two choices will sustain your life for existence. It's Health not wealth. Being healthy will give you life. Being Dead even if you are a wealthy person means nothing. So it's Being Healthy is better. Thank you.

Before delving into the details of the fintechzoom hublot Spirit, let’s set the stage with a brief overview of FintechZoom.

Survey: 47% of Americans say money is negatively impacting their mental health

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Kyle Connolly is exhausted.

Connolly, a 41-year-old in Gulf Breeze, Florida, separated from her husband in March 2023, leading to an expensive and emotionally taxing divorce. Then, the Friday before Thanksgiving, she was laid off from her full-time corporate job. She took on part-time retail work to make ends meet.

Even though she took on gig work dogsitting, March was her worst month yet financially. By then, her savings were gone and she had to turn to family for help for the first time to provide for herself and her three young children.

“My mental health has been a roller coaster. It’s just been a lot,” Connolly says.

It’s no secret that it’s more difficult to manage your mental health when you’re struggling to get by. Millions of Americans are suffering from money-related stress as they try to juggle everything from debt and student loans to saving and retirement.

Around half (47 percent) of U.S. adults say money has a negative impact on their mental health, at least occasionally, causing anxiety, stress, worrisome thoughts, loss of sleep, depression or other effects, according to Bankrate’s latest Money and Mental Health Survey.

If you’re struggling due to money, you’re not alone. This is how money is affecting Americans’ mental health and what you can do to prepare if you’re worried about your financial future.

Bankrate’s insights on money and mental health

  • Money is impacting millions of Americans’ mental health. 47% of U.S. adults say money has a negative impact on their mental health, at least occasionally, including effects like anxiety, stress, worrisome thoughts, loss of sleep or depression, at least occasionally.
  • Rising prices are the chief culprit. 65% of U.S. adults who say money negatively impacts their mental health cite inflation and/or rising prices as a reason.
  • But paying for everyday items and building savings were also frequently cited. 59% of people who say money negatively impacts their mental health cite paying for everyday expenses, such as groceries or utilities. 56% cite not having enough emergency savings and 47% cite being in debt.

Money affects more Americans’ mental health than work, health or current events

Nearly half (47 percent) of U.S. adults say money has a negative impact on their mental health, at least occasionally, causing anxiety, stress , worrisome thoughts, loss of sleep, depression or other effects, according to Bankrate. That’s the highest percentage among all other suggested factors, some of which include:

  • Money: 47 percent
  • My own health: 39 percent
  • Current events (e.g. world news, politics, climate change, etc.): 38 percent
  • The health of my family/friends: 33 percent
  • Relationships with friends/family: 30 percent

“If you’re lying awake at night worrying about something, there’s a good chance it has something to do with money,” Bankrate Senior Industry Analyst Ted Rossman says.

The percentage of people in 2024 who say money has a negative impact on their mental health, at least occasionally, is slightly lower than it was in 2023 (52 percent), when Bankrate asked the same question :

  • Money: 52 percent
  • Health: 42 percent
  • Current events (e.g. world news, politics, climate change, etc.): 41 percent
  • The health of my family/friends: 36 percent
  • Relationships with friends/family: 32 percent

At present, around half (51 percent) of women say money negatively affects their mental health, compared to 42 percent of men. Women were more likely to report a negative impact on their mental health, at least occasionally, than men from nearly every factor suggested by Bankrate, including:

  • Money: 51 percent of women, 42 percent of men
  • My own health: 44 percent of women, 34 percent of men
  • Current events (e.g. world news, politics, climate change, etc.): 40 percent of women, 35 percent of men
  • Health of their family/friends: 36 percent of women, 29 percent of men
  • Relationships with family/friends: 33 percent of women, 27 percent of men

Not all generations share the same worries. Gen Xers, who are at the age where they may be juggling both trying to improve their credit and planning their upcoming retirement, are the most likely generation to say money negatively affects their mental health, at least occasionally:

  • Gen Zers (ages 18-27): 47 percent
  • Millennials (ages 28-43): 50 percent
  • Gen Xers (ages 44-59): 54 percent
  • Baby boomers (ages 60-78): 40 percent

On the other hand, only 40 percent of baby boomers say money has a negative impact on their mental health, at least occasionally. Unlike other generations, baby boomers are actually more likely to be worried about their own health (45 percent) or current events (44 percent) than money:

Note: Participants could select more than one answer. Source: Bankrate survey, March 18-20, 2024

People who say money negatively impacts their mental health, by education and income

When comparing U.S. adults with different levels of education, people with only some college education are most likely to say money negatively affects their mental health, at least occasionally:

  • High school diploma or less: 45 percent
  • Some college or a two-year degree: 52 percent
  • Bachelor’s degree: 45 percent
  • Post-graduate degree: 43 percent

Americans who report a household income of under $50,000 a year are far more likely to say money negatively impacts their mental health, at least occasionally, compared to people with a higher household income:

  • Under $50,000 per year: 53 percent
  • $50,000-$79,999 per year: 48 percent
  • $80,000-$99,999 per year: 39 percent
  • $100,000 per year or more: 40 percent

Nearly 2 in 3 people whose mental health is affected by money cite inflation and/or rising prices

The high cost of everyday living is negatively affecting a massive percentage of Americans. Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of U.S. adults whose mental health is negatively impacted by money cite inflation/rising prices, and 59 percent cite paying for everyday expenses, such as groceries and utilities:

  • Inflation/rising prices: 65 percent
  • Paying for everyday expenses (e.g. groceries, utilities, etc.): 59 percent
  • Not having enough emergency savings: 56 percent
  • Being in debt (e.g. credit card debt, medical debt, student loan debt, etc.): 47 percent
  • Not enough discretionary spending money: 43 percent
  • Paying for housing (e.g. rent, mortgage, etc.): 40 percent
  • Being unprepared for retirement/low return on my investments: 37 percent
  • Not having a stable income/job security: 33 percent
  • Rising interest rates: 28 percent
  • Something else that is money-related: 21 percent

Inflation has remained a major concern among Americans for over a year, even as the inflation rate itself has fallen. In March 2024, consumer prices had risen 3.5 percent year-over-year, down from the 5 percent annual rate in March 2023, but still higher than the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics . Meanwhile, the percentage of people whose mental health is negatively affected by money and cite inflation barely budged, from 68 percent in 2023 to 65 percent in 2024:

  • 68% cited inflation/rising prices.
  • 60% cited paying for everyday expenses.
  • 56% cited not having enough emergency savings.
  • 47% cited being in debt.

This year, more men who say their mental health is negatively affected by money cited not having a stable income or job security, as well as rising interest rates, compared to women. Women whose mental health is negatively affected by money were more likely to cite nearly all other factors, including inflation/rising prices and paying for everyday expenses:

  • Inflation/rising prices: 67 percent of women, 61 percent of men
  • Paying for everyday expenses (e.g. groceries, utilities, etc.): 63 percent of women, 55 percent of men
  • Not having enough emergency savings: 59 percent of women, 52 percent of men
  • Being in debt (e.g. credit card debt, medical debt, student loan debt, etc.): 49 percent of women, 44 percent of men
  • Not enough discretionary spending money: 44 percent of women, 41 percent of men
  • Paying for housing (e.g. rent, mortgage, etc.): 42 percent of women, 37 percent of men
  • Being unprepared for retirement/low return on my investments: 38 percent of women, 34 percent of men
  • Not having a stable income/job security: 32 percent of women, 34 percent of men
  • Rising interest rates: 26 percent of women, 32 percent of men
  • Something else that is money-related: 21 percent of women, 22 percent of men

Unlike older generations, Gen Zers whose mental health is negatively affected by money are far less likely to cite the same factors as the culprits. Notably, around two-thirds of millennials, Gen Xers and baby boomers whose mental health is negatively affected by money cite inflation and rising prices, compared to only 50 percent of Gen Zers:

Notes: Participants could select more than one answer; Percentages are of U.S. adults who have money concerns that impact their mental health Source: Bankrate survey, March 18-20, 2024

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin, a financial therapist who helps people untangle their anxiety around money, says right now, her clients are generally feeling anxious about a possible future emergency , like a potential recession or job loss. Though the economy is recovering in some areas, her clients have been worried about money for a while now, and Bryan-Podvin says the economy isn’t improving fast enough to ease many people’s minds about money.

“When we don’t have that forward (economic) momentum that we’re supposedly used to here in the States, it can feel really disorienting,” Bryan-Podvin says. “Overall, the general trajectory is growth. But when we don’t have that massive growth like we had over the last couple of years,  that slowdown can feel like (people are) going backward. That can cause a lot of anxiety.”

Financial changes alone won’t heal poor mental health — but these tips might help

Connolly was laid off last November, but she had been worried about her employer’s financial stability for a long time before that. She saved more money to prepare for the future while she worked there, but when that layoff finally came, she quickly used up those emergency savings.

Now, living on only a fraction of the income she brought in before, she’s been making ends meet by canceling subscriptions, cutting out restaurants and doing free activities with her kids, like hiking and going to the nearby beach.

“I have to be very, very mindful of every single thing that I spend my money on. I have my debit card locked, so I’ll unlock it, and then use it, and then lock it, just in case I get hit with an unexpected charge,” Connolly says.

Stress or depression from money-related struggles may not go away from simply saving more or cutting expenses. But if you’re worried about your financial future, you can take small actions to help.

“When we worry about things, a lot of the time it’s because we feel out of control. Take some of that power back by putting a plan together,” Rossman says. “There are plenty of things you can do to get moving in the right direction.”

For example, if you’re worried about your savings, Rossman recommends automatically depositing a portion of your paycheck into a high-yield savings account every payday. Additionally, if you’re carrying a large amount of debt, debt consolidation can help you pay more of your principal while paying lower interest.

If you’re still concerned and need more local, personalized guidance, call 211 or visit your state’s 211 site for a list of mental health and personal finance resources in your area.

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When Prison and Mental Illness Amount to a Death Sentence

The downward spiral of one inmate, Markus Johnson, shows the larger failures of the nation’s prisons to care for the mentally ill.

Supported by

By Glenn Thrush

Photographs by Carlos Javier Ortiz

Glenn Thrush spent more than a year reporting this article, interviewing close to 50 people and reviewing court-obtained body-camera footage and more than 1,500 pages of documents.

  • Published May 5, 2024 Updated May 7, 2024

Markus Johnson slumped naked against the wall of his cell, skin flecked with pepper spray, his face a mask of puzzlement, exhaustion and resignation. Four men in black tactical gear pinned him, his face to the concrete, to cuff his hands behind his back.

He did not resist. He couldn’t. He was so gravely dehydrated he would be dead by their next shift change.

Listen to this article with reporter commentary

“I didn’t do anything,” Mr. Johnson moaned as they pressed a shield between his shoulders.

It was 1:19 p.m. on Sept. 6, 2019, in the Danville Correctional Center, a medium-security prison a few hours south of Chicago. Mr. Johnson, 21 and serving a short sentence for gun possession, was in the throes of a mental collapse that had gone largely untreated, but hardly unwatched.

He had entered in good health, with hopes of using the time to gain work skills. But for the previous three weeks, Mr. Johnson, who suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, had refused to eat or take his medication. Most dangerous of all, he had stealthily stopped drinking water, hastening the physical collapse that often accompanies full-scale mental crises.

Mr. Johnson’s horrific downward spiral, which has not been previously reported, represents the larger failures of the nation’s prisons to care for the mentally ill. Many seriously ill people receive no treatment . For those who do, the outcome is often determined by the vigilance and commitment of individual supervisors and frontline staff, which vary greatly from system to system, prison to prison, and even shift to shift.

The country’s jails and prisons have become its largest provider of inpatient mental health treatment, with 10 times as many seriously mentally ill people now held behind bars as in hospitals. Estimating the population of incarcerated people with major psychological problems is difficult, but the number is likely 200,000 to 300,000, experts say.

Many of these institutions remain ill-equipped to handle such a task, and the burden often falls on prison staff and health care personnel who struggle with the dual roles of jailer and caregiver in a high-stress, dangerous, often dehumanizing environment.

In 2021, Joshua McLemore , a 29-year-old with schizophrenia held for weeks in an isolation cell in Jackson County, Ind., died of organ failure resulting from a “refusal to eat or drink,” according to an autopsy. In April, New York City agreed to pay $28 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the family of Nicholas Feliciano, a young man with a history of mental illness who suffered severe brain damage after attempting to hang himself on Rikers Island — as correctional officers stood by.

Mr. Johnson’s mother has filed a wrongful-death suit against the state and Wexford Health Sources, a for-profit health care contractor in Illinois prisons. The New York Times reviewed more than 1,500 pages of reports, along with depositions taken from those involved. Together, they reveal a cascade of missteps, missed opportunities, potential breaches of protocol and, at times, lapses in common sense.

A woman wearing a jeans jacket sitting at a table showing photos of a young boy on her cellphone.

Prison officials and Wexford staff took few steps to intervene even after it became clear that Mr. Johnson, who had been hospitalized repeatedly for similar episodes and recovered, had refused to take medication. Most notably, they did not transfer him to a state prison facility that provides more intensive mental health treatment than is available at regular prisons, records show.

The quality of medical care was also questionable, said Mr. Johnson’s lawyers, Sarah Grady and Howard Kaplan, a married legal team in Chicago. Mr. Johnson lost 50 to 60 pounds during three weeks in solitary confinement, but officials did not initiate interventions like intravenous feedings or transfer him to a non-prison hospital.

And they did not take the most basic step — dialing 911 — until it was too late.

There have been many attempts to improve the quality of mental health treatment in jails and prisons by putting care on par with punishment — including a major effort in Chicago . But improvements have proved difficult to enact and harder to sustain, hampered by funding and staffing shortages.

Lawyers representing the state corrections department, Wexford and staff members who worked at Danville declined to comment on Mr. Johnson’s death, citing the unresolved litigation. In their interviews with state police investigators, and in depositions, employees defended their professionalism and adherence to procedure, while citing problems with high staff turnover, difficult work conditions, limited resources and shortcomings of co-workers.

But some expressed a sense of resignation about the fate of Mr. Johnson and others like him.

Prisoners have “much better chances in a hospital, but that’s not their situation,” said a senior member of Wexford’s health care team in a deposition.

“I didn’t put them in prison,” he added. “They are in there for a reason.”

Markus Mison Johnson was born on March 1, 1998, to a mother who believed she was not capable of caring for him.

Days after his birth, he was taken in by Lisa Barker Johnson, a foster mother in her 30s who lived in Zion, Ill., a working-class city halfway between Chicago and Milwaukee. Markus eventually became one of four children she adopted from different families.

The Johnson house is a lively split level, with nieces, nephews, grandchildren and neighbors’ children, family keepsakes, video screens and juice boxes. Ms. Johnson sits at its center on a kitchen chair, chin resting on her hand as children wander over to share their thoughts, or to tug on her T-shirt to ask her to be their bathroom buddy.

From the start, her bond with Markus was particularly powerful, in part because the two looked so much alike, with distinctive dimpled smiles. Many neighbors assumed he was her biological son. The middle name she chose for him was intended to convey that message.

“Mison is short for ‘my son,’” she said standing over his modest footstone grave last summer.

He was happy at home. School was different. His grades were good, but he was intensely shy and was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in elementary school.

That was around the time the bullying began. His sisters were fierce defenders, but they could only do so much. He did the best he could, developing a quick, taunting tongue.

These experiences filled him with a powerful yearning to fit in.

It was not to be.

When he was around 15, he called 911 in a panic, telling the dispatcher he saw two men standing near the small park next to his house threatening to abduct children playing there. The officers who responded found nothing out of the ordinary, and rang the Johnsons’ doorbell.

He later told his mother he had heard a voice telling him to “protect the kids.”

He was hospitalized for the first time at 16, and given medications that stabilized him for stretches of time. But the crises would strike every six months or so, often triggered by his decision to stop taking his medication.

His family became adept at reading signs he was “getting sick.” He would put on his tan Timberlands and a heavy winter coat, no matter the season, and perch on the edge of his bed as if bracing for battle. Sometimes, he would cook his own food, paranoid that someone might poison him.

He graduated six months early, on the dean’s list, but was rudderless, and hanging out with younger boys, often paying their way.

His mother pointed out the perils of buying friendship.

“I don’t care,” he said. “At least I’ll be popular for a minute.”

Zion’s inviting green grid of Bible-named streets belies the reality that it is a rough, unforgiving place to grow up. Family members say Markus wanted desperately to prove he was tough, and emulated his younger, reckless group of friends.

Like many of them, he obtained a pistol. He used it to hold up a convenience store clerk for $425 in January 2017, according to police records. He cut a plea deal for two years of probation, and never explained to his family what had made him do it.

But he kept getting into violent confrontations. In late July 2018, he was arrested in a neighbor’s garage with a handgun he later admitted was his. He was still on probation for the robbery, and his public defender negotiated a plea deal that would send him to state prison until January 2020.

An inpatient mental health system

Around 40 percent of the about 1.8 million people in local, state and federal jails and prison suffer from at least one mental illness, and many of these people have concurrent issues with substance abuse, according to recent Justice Department estimates.

Psychological problems, often exacerbated by drug use, often lead to significant medical problems resulting from a lack of hygiene or access to good health care.

“When you suffer depression in the outside world, it’s hard to concentrate, you have reduced energy, your sleep is disrupted, you have a very gloomy outlook, so you stop taking care of yourself,” said Robert L. Trestman , a Virginia Tech medical school professor who has worked on state prison mental health reforms.

The paradox is that prison is often the only place where sick people have access to even minimal care.

But the harsh work environment, remote location of many prisons, and low pay have led to severe shortages of corrections staff and the unwillingness of doctors, nurses and counselors to work with the incarcerated mentally ill.

In the early 2000s, prisoners’ rights lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit against Illinois claiming “deliberate indifference” to the plight of about 5,000 mentally ill prisoners locked in segregated units and denied treatment and medication.

In 2014, the parties reached a settlement that included minimum staffing mandates, revamped screening protocols, restrictions on the use of solitary confinement and the allocation of about $100 million to double capacity in the system’s specialized mental health units.

Yet within six months of the deal, Pablo Stewart, an independent monitor chosen to oversee its enforcement, declared the system to be in a state of emergency.

Over the years, some significant improvements have been made. But Dr. Stewart’s final report , drafted in 2022, gave the system failing marks for its medication and staffing policies and reliance on solitary confinement “crisis watch” cells.

Ms. Grady, one of Mr. Johnson’s lawyers, cited an additional problem: a lack of coordination between corrections staff and Wexford’s professionals, beyond dutifully filling out dozens of mandated status reports.

“Markus Johnson was basically documented to death,” she said.

‘I’m just trying to keep my head up’

Mr. Johnson was not exactly looking forward to prison. But he saw it as an opportunity to learn a trade so he could start a family when he got out.

On Dec. 18, 2018, he arrived at a processing center in Joliet, where he sat for an intake interview. He was coherent and cooperative, well-groomed and maintained eye contact. He was taking his medication, not suicidal and had a hearty appetite. He was listed as 5 feet 6 inches tall and 256 pounds.

Mr. Johnson described his mood as “go with the flow.”

A few days later, after arriving in Danville, he offered a less settled assessment during a telehealth visit with a Wexford psychiatrist, Dr. Nitin Thapar. Mr. Johnson admitted to being plagued by feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness and “constant uncontrollable worrying” that affected his sleep.

He told Dr. Thapar he had heard voices in the past — but not now — telling him he was a failure, and warning that people were out to get him.

At the time he was incarcerated, the basic options for mentally ill people in Illinois prisons included placement in the general population or transfer to a special residential treatment program at the Dixon Correctional Center, west of Chicago. Mr. Johnson seemed out of immediate danger, so he was assigned to a standard two-man cell in the prison’s general population, with regular mental health counseling and medication.

Things started off well enough. “I’m just trying to keep my head up,” he wrote to his mother. “Every day I learn to be stronger & stronger.”

But his daily phone calls back home hinted at friction with other inmates. And there was not much for him to do after being turned down for a janitorial training program.

Then, in the spring of 2019, his grandmother died, sending him into a deep hole.

Dr. Thapar prescribed a new drug used to treat major depressive disorders. Its most common side effect is weight gain. Mr. Johnson stopped taking it.

On July 4, he told Dr. Thapar matter-of-factly during a telehealth check-in that he was no longer taking any of his medications. “I’ve been feeling normal, I guess,” he said. “I feel like I don’t need the medication anymore.”

Dr. Thapar said he thought that was a mistake, but accepted the decision and removed Mr. Johnson from his regular mental health caseload — instructing him to “reach out” if he needed help, records show.

The pace of calls back home slackened. Mr. Johnson spent more time in bed, and became more surly. At a group-therapy session, he sat stone silent, after showing up late.

By early August, he was telling guards he had stopped eating.

At some point, no one knows when, he had intermittently stopped drinking fluids.

‘I’m having a breakdown’

Then came the crash.

On Aug. 12, Mr. Johnson got into a fight with his older cellmate.

He was taken to a one-man disciplinary cell. A few hours later, Wexford’s on-site mental health counselor, Melanie Easton, was shocked by his disoriented condition. Mr. Johnson stared blankly, then burst into tears when asked if he had “suffered a loss in the previous six months.”

He was so unresponsive to her questions she could not finish the evaluation.

Ms. Easton ordered that he be moved to a 9-foot by 8-foot crisis cell — solitary confinement with enhanced monitoring. At this moment, a supervisor could have ticked the box for “residential treatment” on a form to transfer him to Dixon. That did not happen, according to records and depositions.

Around this time, he asked to be placed back on his medication but nothing seems to have come of it, records show.

By mid-August, he said he was visualizing “people that were not there,” according to case notes. At first, he was acting more aggressively, once flicking water at a guard through a hole in his cell door. But his energy ebbed, and he gradually migrated downward — from standing to bunk to floor.

“I’m having a breakdown,” he confided to a Wexford employee.

At the time, inmates in Illinois were required to declare an official hunger strike before prison officials would initiate protocols, including blood testing or forced feedings. But when a guard asked Mr. Johnson why he would not eat, he said he was “fasting,” as opposed to starving himself, and no action seems to have been taken.

‘Tell me this is OK!’

Lt. Matthew Morrison, one of the few people at Danville to take a personal interest in Mr. Johnson, reported seeing a white rind around his mouth in early September. He told other staff members the cell gave off “a death smell,” according to a deposition.

On Sept. 5, they moved Mr. Johnson to one of six cells adjacent to the prison’s small, bare-bones infirmary. Prison officials finally placed him on the official hunger strike protocol without his consent.

Mr. Morrison, in his deposition, said he was troubled by the inaction of the Wexford staff, and the lack of urgency exhibited by the medical director, Dr. Justin Young.

On Sept. 5, Mr. Morrison approached Dr. Young to express his concerns, and the doctor agreed to order blood and urine tests. But Dr. Young lived in Chicago, and was on site at the prison about four times a week, according to Mr. Kaplan. Friday, Sept. 6, 2019, was not one of those days.

Mr. Morrison arrived at work that morning, expecting to find Mr. Johnson’s testing underway. A Wexford nurse told him Dr. Young believed the tests could wait.

Mr. Morrison, stunned, asked her to call Dr. Young.

“He’s good till Monday,” Dr. Young responded, according to Mr. Morrison.

“Come on, come on, look at this guy! You tell me this is OK!” the officer responded.

Eventually, Justin Duprey, a licensed nurse practitioner and the most senior Wexford employee on duty that day, authorized the test himself.

Mr. Morrison, thinking he had averted a disaster, entered the cell and implored Mr. Johnson into taking the tests. He refused.

So prison officials obtained approval to remove him forcibly from his cell.

‘Oh, my God’

What happened next is documented in video taken from cameras held by officers on the extraction team and obtained by The Times through a court order.

Mr. Johnson is scarcely recognizable as the neatly groomed 21-year-old captured in a cellphone picture a few months earlier. His skin is ashen, eyes fixed on the middle distance. He might be 40. Or 60.

At first, he places his hands forward through the hole in his cell door to be cuffed. This is against procedure, the officers shout. His hands must be in back.

He will not, or cannot, comply. He wanders to the rear of his cell and falls hard. Two blasts of pepper spray barely elicit a reaction. The leader of the tactical team later said he found it unusual and unnerving.

The next video is in the medical unit. A shield is pressed to his chest. He is in agony, begging for them to stop, as two nurses attempt to insert a catheter.

Then they move him, half-conscious and limp, onto a wheelchair for the blood draw.

For the next 20 minutes, the Wexford nurse performing the procedure, Angelica Wachtor, jabs hands and arms to find a vessel that will hold shape. She winces with each puncture, tries to comfort him, and grows increasingly rattled.

“Oh, my God,” she mutters, and asks why help is not on the way.

She did not request assistance or discuss calling 911, records indicate.

“Can you please stop — it’s burning real bad,” Mr. Johnson said.

Soon after, a member of the tactical team reminds Ms. Wachtor to take Mr. Johnson’s vitals before taking him back to his cell. She would later tell Dr. Young she had been unable to able to obtain his blood pressure.

“You good?” one of the team members asks as they are preparing to leave.

“Yeah, I’ll have to be,” she replies in the recording.

Officers lifted him back onto his bunk, leaving him unconscious and naked except for a covering draped over his groin. His expressionless face is visible through the window on the cell door as it closes.

‘Cardiac arrest.’

Mr. Duprey, the nurse practitioner, had been sitting inside his office after corrections staff ordered him to shelter for his own protection, he said. When he emerged, he found Ms. Wachtor sobbing, and after a delay, he was let into the cell. Finding no pulse, Mr. Duprey asked a prison employee to call 911 so Mr. Johnson could be taken to a local emergency room.

The Wexford staff initiated CPR. It did not work.

At 3:38 p.m., the paramedics declared Markus Mison Johnson dead.

Afterward, a senior official at Danville called the Johnson family to say he had died of “cardiac arrest.”

Lisa Johnson pressed for more information, but none was initially forthcoming. She would soon receive a box hastily crammed with his possessions: uneaten snacks, notebooks, an inspirational memoir by a man who had served 20 years at Leavenworth.

Later, Shiping Bao, the coroner who examined his body, determined Mr. Johnson had died of severe dehydration. He told the state police it “was one of the driest bodies he had ever seen.”

For a long time, Ms. Johnson blamed herself. She says that her biggest mistake was assuming that the state, with all its resources, would provide a level of care comparable to what she had been able to provide her son.

She had stopped accepting foster care children while she was raising Markus and his siblings. But as the months dragged on, she decided her once-boisterous house had become oppressively still, and let local agencies know she was available again.

“It is good to have children around,” she said. “It was too quiet around here.”

Read by Glenn Thrush

Audio produced by Jack D’Isidoro .

Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice. He joined The Times in 2017 after working for Politico, Newsday, Bloomberg News, The New York Daily News, The Birmingham Post-Herald and City Limits. More about Glenn Thrush

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A tribe in maine is using opioid settlement funds on a sweat lodge to treat addiction.

Aneri Pattani

Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez

money or health essay

The Mi'kmaq Nation in Maine spent about $50,000 of its opioid settlement funds to build a healing lodge it will use for traditional sweat ceremonies to help people recover from addiction. Aneri Pattani/KFF Health News hide caption

The Mi'kmaq Nation in Maine spent about $50,000 of its opioid settlement funds to build a healing lodge it will use for traditional sweat ceremonies to help people recover from addiction.

PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Outside the Mi'kmaq Nation's health department sits a dome-shaped tent, built by hand from saplings and covered in black canvas. It's one of several sweat lodges on the tribe's land, but this one is dedicated to helping people recover from addiction.

Up to 10 people enter the lodge at once. Fire-heated stones — called grandmothers and grandfathers, for the spirits they represent — are brought inside. Water is splashed on the stones, and the lodge fills with steam. It feels like a sauna, but hotter. The air is thicker, and it's dark. People pray and sing songs. When they leave the lodge, it is said, they reemerge from the mother's womb. Cleansed. Reborn.

money or health essay

Edward Peter-Paul is chief of the Mi'kmaq Nation in Maine. Decades ago, a sweat ceremony helped him improve his relationship with drugs and alcohol. He hopes the new healing lodge can do the same for other tribal citizens. Aneri Pattani/KFF Health News hide caption

Edward Peter-Paul is chief of the Mi'kmaq Nation in Maine. Decades ago, a sweat ceremony helped him improve his relationship with drugs and alcohol. He hopes the new healing lodge can do the same for other tribal citizens.

The experience can be "a vital tool" in healing, said Katie Espling, health director for the roughly 2,000-member tribe.

She said patients in recovery have requested sweat lodges for years as a cultural element to complement the counseling and medications the tribe's health department already provides . But insurance doesn't cover sweat ceremonies, so, until now, the department couldn't afford to provide them.

In the past year, the Mi'kmaq Nation received more than $150,000 from settlements with companies that made or sold prescription painkillers and were accused of exacerbating the overdose crisis. A third of that money was spent on the sweat lodge.

Higher death rates

Health care companies are paying out more than $1.5 billion to hundreds of tribes over 15 years. This windfall is similar to settlements that many of the same companies are paying to state governments , which total about $50 billion.

To some people, the lower payout for tribes corresponds to their smaller population. But some tribal citizens point out that the overdose crisis has had a disproportionate effect on their communities. Native Americans had the highest overdose death rates of any racial group each year from 2020 to 2022. And federal officials say those statistics were likely undercounted by about 34% because Native Americans' race is often misclassified on death certificates.

Still, many tribal leaders are grateful for the settlements and the unique way the money can be spent: Unlike the state payments, money sent to tribes can be used for traditional and cultural healing practices — anything from sweat lodges and smudging ceremonies to basketmaking and programs that teach tribal languages.

"To have these dollars to do that, it's really been a gift," said Espling of the Mi'kmaq tribe. "This is going to absolutely be fundamental to our patients' well-being" because connecting with their culture is "where they'll really find the deepest healing."

Public health experts say the underlying cause of addiction in many tribal communities is intergenerational trauma, resulting from centuries of brutal treatment, including broken treaties, land theft, and a government-funded boarding school system that sought to erase the tribes' languages and cultures. Along with a long-running lack of investment in the Indian Health Service, these factors have led to lower life expectancy and higher rates of addiction, suicide, and chronic diseases.

Using settlement money to connect tribal citizens with their traditions and reinvigorate pride in their culture can be a powerful healing tool, said Andrea Medley , a researcher with the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health and a member of the Haida Nation. She helped create principles for how tribes can consider spending settlement money.

Medley said that having respect for those traditional elements outlined explicitly in the settlements is "really groundbreaking."

'A Drop in the Bucket'

Of the 574 federally recognized tribes, more than 300 have received payments so far, totaling more than $371 million, according to Kevin Washburn , one of three court-appointed directors overseeing the tribal settlements.

Although that sounds like a large sum, it pales in comparison with what the addiction crisis has cost tribes. There are also hundreds of tribes that are excluded from the payments because they aren't federally recognized.

"These abatement funds are like a drop in the bucket compared to what they've spent, compared to what they anticipate spending," said Corey Hinton , a lawyer who represented several tribes in the opioid litigation and a citizen of the Passamaquoddy Tribe. "Abatement is a cheap term when we're talking about a crisis that is still engulfing and devastating communities."

Even leaders of the Navajo Nation — the largest federally recognized tribe in the United States, which has received $63 million so far — said the settlements can't match the magnitude of the crisis.

"It'll do a little dent, but it will only go so far," said Kim Russell, executive director of the Navajo Department of Health.

The Navajo Nation is trying to stretch the money by using it to improve its overall health system. Officials plan to use the payouts to hire more coding and billing employees for tribe-operated hospitals and clinics. Those workers would help ensure reimbursements keep flowing to the health systems and would help sustain and expand services, including addiction treatment and prevention, Russell said.

Navajo leaders also want to hire more clinicians specializing in substance use treatment, as well as primary care doctors, nurses, and epidemiologists.

"Building buildings is not what we want" from the opioid settlement funds, Russell said. "We're nation-building."

High stakes for small tribes

Smaller nations like the Poarch Band of Creek Indians in southern Alabama are also strategizing to make settlement money go further.

For the tribe of roughly 2,900 members, that has meant investing $500,000 — most of what it has received so far — into a statistical modeling platform that its creators say will simulate the opioid crisis, predict which programs will save the most lives, and help local officials decide the most effective use of future settlement cash.

money or health essay

Robert McGhee is vice chairman of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians in Alabama. The tribe has spent its opioid settlement funds on a statistical modeling platform meant to help them invest future dollars wisely. Aneri Pattani/KFF Health News hide caption

Robert McGhee is vice chairman of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians in Alabama. The tribe has spent its opioid settlement funds on a statistical modeling platform meant to help them invest future dollars wisely.

Some recovery advocates have questioned the model's value, but the tribe's vice chairman, Robert McGhee , said it would provide the data and evidence needed to choose among efforts competing for resources, such as recovery housing or peer support specialists. The tribe wants to do both, but realistically, it will have to prioritize.

"If we can have this model and we put the necessary funds to it and have the support, it'll work for us," McGhee said. "I just feel it in my gut."

The stakes are high. In smaller communities, each death affects the whole tribe, McGhee said. The loss of one leader marks decades of lost knowledge. The passing of a speaker means further erosion of the Native language.

For Keesha Frye, who oversees the Poarch Band of Creek Indians' tribal court and sober living facility, using settlement money effectively is personal. "It means a lot to me to get this community well because this is where I live and this is where my family lives," she said.

Erik Lamoreau in Maine also brings personal ties to this work. More than a decade ago, he sold drugs on Mi'kmaq lands to support his own addiction.

"I did harm in this community and it was really important for me to come back and try to right some of those wrongs," Lamoreau said.

money or health essay

Erik Lamoreau is a peer recovery coordinator for the Mi'kmaq Nation health department. Note his license plate. Aneri Pattani/KFF Health News hide caption

Erik Lamoreau is a peer recovery coordinator for the Mi'kmaq Nation health department. Note his license plate.

Today, he works for the tribe as a peer recovery coordinator, a new role created with the opioid settlement funds. He uses his experience to connect with others and help them with recovery — whether that means giving someone a ride to court, working on their résumé, exercising together at the gym, or hosting a cribbage club, where people play the card game and socialize without alcohol or drugs.

Beginning this month, Lamoreau's work will also involve connecting clients who seek cultural elements of recovery to the new sweat lodge service — an effort he finds promising.

"The more in tune you are with your culture — no matter what culture that is — it connects you to something bigger," Lamoreau said. "And that's really what we look at when we're in recovery, when we talk about spiritual connection. It's something bigger than you."

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF .

  • Native American
  • opioid addiction
  • addiction recovery
  • opioid lawsuits
  • tribal nations

money or health essay

Letitia James Asked to Turn Over Documents

R epresentative Jim Jordan is asking New York Attorney General Letitia James to hand over documents and communications related to a prosecutor working on former President Donald Trump 's hush money case.

Jordan, the Ohio Republican who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to James requesting all documents and communications about Matthew Colangelo, an attorney working for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg previously employed by James' office and the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Bragg's office is trying Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to an alleged hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Bragg alleged the payment was meant to prevent her from speaking publicly about her claims of having an affair with the former president.

Trump has denied having an affair with Daniels and pleaded not guilty to all criminal charges. He maintains his innocence and has accused Bragg and other prosecutors of targeting him for political purposes, criticizing the trial as a form of election interference.

Trump supporters have raised concerns about Colangelo's previous experience at the DOJ, where he also worked on cases involving the former president.

Republicans have accused prosecutors of unjustly targeting Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, for political purposes. Some conservatives have also spread claims that the connection is evidence that President Joe Biden is behind the prosecution, but no evidence has been presented to support those allegations.

Jordan's committee has been probing what he views as the "weaponization" of the legal system against Trump and other conservatives. His letter to James comes amid his efforts to look into these concerns. In the letter, he expressed concerns about "the perception that the Justice Department is assisting in District Attorney Bragg's politicized prosecution."

"The fact that a former senior Biden DOJ official—whose previous employment consisted of leading 'a wave of state litigation against Trump administration policies'—is now leading the prosecution of President Biden's chief political rival only adds to the perception that the Biden DOJ is politicized and weaponized," Jordan wrote.

He argued that Colangelo's employment shows an alleged "obsession with investigating a person rather than prosecuting a crime."

Jordan requested all documents and communications since January 1, 2017, between Colangelo and any employee of the Manhattan DA's Office, the Fulton County DA's Office in Georgia (where Trump is facing election interference charges), the DOJ, the Democratic National Committee or Biden for President referring to or related to Trump, The Trump Organization and any other entity associated with Trump, according to the letter.

He also requested all personnel files related to Colangelo's hiring, employment or termination at the AG's office. Jordan asked James to deliver all files to him by May 29, 2024, at 5 p.m.

Newsweek reached out to James' and Bragg's offices for comment via email.

Colangelo spent two years in a senior position at the DOJ , overseeing the Antitrust, Civil, Civil Rights, Environment and Natural Resources, and Tax divisions, according to a press release announcing his hiring in December 2022

In the press release, Bragg wrote: "Matthew Colangelo brings a wealth of economic justice experience combined with complex white-collar investigations, and he has the sound judgment and integrity needed to pursue justice against powerful people and institutions when they abuse their power."

It also noted that Colangelo worked at the New York State Office of the Attorney General, where he investigated the Trump Foundation.

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New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a press conference in New York City on February 16, 2024. Representative Jim Jordan requested James send him documents related to former President Donald Trump’s hush money payment.

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May 14, 2024

California moves faster to transform mental health system for all, with urgent focus on most seriously ill & homeless

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW : California is accelerating the distribution of billions of dollars in new funding available to counties and others to construct outpatient, inpatient, and residential behavioral health facilities and creating new mental health resources for Californians across the state.

REDWOOD CITY – Today, while visiting a behavioral health treatment center under ongoing expansion in San Mateo County, Governor Newsom announced the state is accelerating – in record time – the first round of funding, made available by Prop 1, to boost California’s ongoing transformation of the statewide Behavioral Health system.

money or health essay

In addition to announcing the faster availability of billions of dollars in Behavioral Health Bond construction funding – through the recently passed Prop. 1 – Governor Newsom announced a new website: MentalHealth.ca.gov, which will serve as a one-stop source for people in need of mental health support and includes information about the state’s ongoing behavioral health transformation. And while visiting San Mateo County, Governor Newsom announced the county would be an early adopter of the CARE Act, not waiting for the December 1 deadline to bring lifesaving help to people with untreated schizophrenia spectrum or other psychotic disorders.

“California is moving full steam ahead, getting funding out faster, and implementing key reforms sooner to better help Californians. The status quo is simply unacceptable. People are demanding more accountability, with real results. That is what we are aiming to deliver, but the state cannot do it alone – it is time for local officials to step up and begin to use the tools available to them to make our communities healthier and safer for all. San Mateo has stepped up. Now it’s time for other counties to do the same.”

Governor Gavin Newsom

money or health essay

The Redwood City location is utilizing investments from the Behavioral Health Bridge Housing (BHBH) program , which, since 2022, has provided funding to short-term “bridge” housing settings to address the immediate and sustainable housing needs of people experiencing homelessness who have serious behavioral health conditions. Treatment centers and campuses like the one highlighted today will be possible all across the state thanks to the recently passed $6.38 Billion bond which builds on state-funded construction over the last three years to open new treatment and housing sites with each passing month.

NEW BEHAVIORAL HEALTH CONSTRUCTION FUNDING : Eligible entities, which include counties, cities, tribal entities, non-profits, and for profits, will be able to apply for funding from the first round of the $6.38 billion bond this summer. This bond application timeline is months ahead of the initial schedule, thanks to the work of the Governor’s internal strike team focused on getting results and implementation as quickly as possible.

DETAILS : The Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) has issued its bond guidance for behavioral health treatment beds and sites (for $3.3 billion, or 75%, of the $4.4 billion overall, for Launch Ready projects), with the request for application to be posted this summer. Additionally, the California Health and Human Services Agency, California Veterans Affairs Agency (CalVet), and the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) at the Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency have jointly briefed county, city, and other community and local leaders on their role in implementing this historic transformation and the resources and tools available to them. HCD, with CalVet, will issue its bond guidance for supportive housing ($2 billion overall, with $1 billion for veterans) by end of 2024.

WHY THIS MATTERS : A RAND study and a DCHS needs assessment identified a current gap in behavioral health inpatient treatment beds and outpatient treatment centers in California – making it harder for people to get the treatment they need. Cutting tape and moving faster to get bond funding out means key behavioral health infrastructure sites can be built faster. That means more beds and more treatment slots for Californians who need them to get the support and care they need to get healthy. Similarly, supportive housing units will help re-house and keep housed people with both housing and behavioral health challenges who too often suffer on the streets and in our jails.

Learn more about California’s Behavioral Health System

NEW MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES WEBSITE : Additionally, Governor Newsom announced the launch of MentalHealth.CA.gov, a one-stop website for people seeking mental health resources available to Californians. Accompanying these life-saving resources is initial high-level information and resources about the ongoing transformation of the state’s behavioral health system, with even more details and local tracking tools coming online in the coming months. This will help Californians see how their own county government is using the tools and resources already available to them.

WHY CALIFORNIANS SHOULD CARE : Governor Newsom is focused on transparency and accountability as the state implements this voter approved Proposition. Version 1.0 of this website has initial information on implementation and current tools available to counties who administer the state’s behavioral health system. This website will continue to be built out to include additional details and data, so people will be able to see how their county compares to other California counties.

Visit MentalHealth.CA.Gov

CARE ACT EXPEDITED IN SAN MATEO COUNTY : And while in San Mateo County today, Governor Newsom spoke about the county moving to adopt the CARE Act earlier than others – showing real progress and a need from locals to utilize all of the tools currently available to them for the results Californians are demanding.

DETAILS : Over the last 6 months, California’s Health and Human Services Agency (CalHHS) traveled the state performing “site visits” with each of the eight counties currently implementing CARE Court. During these visits, CalHHS has worked to problem solve, share best practices, and identify ways to refine and continually improve the process for all participants and all counties (which must implement no later than December 2024).

WHY STARTING CARE COURT NOW IS IMPORTANT : Spearheaded by Governor Newsom and the Legislature in 2022, the CARE Act is an innovative new pathway to ensure people with untreated schizophrenia spectrum or other psychotic disorders actually get the help they need in the community. In addition to being a tool to engage the individual, this civil court process also includes accountability measures to ensure local behavioral health systems don’t let people fall through the cracks. Seven counties initially implemented the CARE Act in October 2023 and Los Angeles county implemented it in December 2023. Over 450 petitions have already been submitted in just those eight counties in about the first six months. Even more people have been helped due to CARE Act outreach teams who do not need to enter the full CARE Act process but begin receiving help as a result. Additional counties are able to join at any time. San Mateo implementing earlier than required indicates county leadership is serious about tackling the mental health and homelessness crises.

In addition to providing resources and guidance on implementing the CARE Act, DHCS is issuing a new FAQ and optional standardized forms related to the modernization of conservatorship (SB 43), to add on to the county guidance released last month. Two counties have already begun implementing, and these new resources are designed to make it clear that counties do not need to wait until the January 1, 2026 deadline to begin implementing this reform to help gravely disabled people in their communities – one of the many new tools available to them so Californians can begin to see the results in their communities that they deserve.

money or health essay

Rendering of What The Redwood City Location Will Look Like Once Completed

BIGGER PICTURE : Transforming the Mental Health Services Act into the Behavioral Health Services Act and building more community behavioral health treatment sites and supportive housing is the central pillar of Governor Newsom’s Mental Health for All – pulling together significant recent reforms like 988 crisis line, CalHOPE, CARE Act, conservatorship reform, CalAIM behavioral health expansion (including mobile crisis care and telehealth), Medi-Cal expansion to all low-income Californians, Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative (including expanding services in schools and on-line), Veterans Health Initiative, Older Adult Behavioral Health Initiative, Behavioral Health Community Infrastructure Program, Behavioral Health Bridge Housing, Behavioral Health CONNECT to address gaps in the community care continuum, expand effective practices, diversify the workforce, and more.

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