These include less than a high school education, birth outside of marriage, single-parent household, teenage motherhood, and feelings of stress and depression. Poverty also makes it difficult to purchase some of the commodities conducive to good health. These include adequate housing, nutritious food, transportation, drugs, medical equipment, and safety devices. In addition, poor families frequently have little time available for health-promoting activities. The availability of health services also plays a major role in determining the health status of poor children.
Poor families face a number of obstacles in obtaining appropriate health care.
Financial problems make it difficult for them to pay for care, and Medicaid and other programs designed to defray health costs are not accessible to all in need. Lack of providers is another barrier. The care received by the poor is more likely to be of lower quality than that offered to the nonpoor, and the content of the care provided is often inadequate to the problems experienced. Finally, poor families may seem unmotivated to seek personal health services when the problem is actually lack of information, fear, or different priorities regarding the use of time and money. When financial barriers are removed, the care-seeking behavior of many of the poor closely resembles that of the nonpoor.