Sick? Check zip code and income

If you have a college degree and a six-figure income, chances are you’ll live longer than someone who doesn’t.

At least that the case presented in “Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making us Sick?” It’s first installment in a seven-part series — shown at the Southwest Film Center on Friday — and explored how income, education level and geographic location factor into a person’s health.

After the film, Roxane Spruce Bly, of the Native Health Initiative, explained that people who live in the Northeast Heights have a higher average life expectancy (82 years old) than those living around UNM (76).

“I had really thought of inequity as being centered around race and ethnicity, and then saw that it was centered around zip codes,” she said. “I think that was the first time I’d really seen that explained so clearly.”

The film argued that stress levels impact people’s health and that it is not enough for them to exercise and eat healthy.

Psychologist Sheldon Cohen conducted a case study examining how stress affects the body’s immune system. Cohen recorded subjects’ stress levels and socioeconomic status before dropping a cold virus in their nose.

What he found: People with low-control/ high-stress jobs were more likely to catch a cold than those with higher-paying jobs.

These health disparities are costing the nation, and every year, the United States loses $1 trillion in productivity to paying people’s medical bills, according to the film.

Jennifer Black, who is pursuing her master’s in public health, said that many people can’t see doctors regularly. She said that understanding the relationship between economic policy and public health is critical to developing a healthier community.

“We say policy is important because ultimately it will save this society at large a lot of money,” she said. “Healthcare cost, ER cost — if we make other people’s health a priority and think of it as equally important, then there will be more money for resources for our entire state.”