A nurse working with clients at or below the poverty level recognizes

A nurse working with clients at or below the poverty level recognizes that the life expectancy of these clients is lower than the general population because of: (select all that apply.)

1. Inadequate nutritional diets
2. High-risk work environments
3. Hazardous living environments
4. Addictive and abusive lifestyles
5. Predisposition to chronic diseases
6. Ineffective decision making abilities

ANSWER

ANS: 1, 2, 3, 4
People who live in poverty are more likely to live in hazardous environments, work at high-risk jobs, eat less nutritious diets, abuse substances, and have multiple stressors in their life. When re-searchers compared the life expectancies of European Americans and African-Americans, the causes of the differences were related to low socioeconomic status rather than ethnicity (Decker and others, 2006; Hwang, 2000). Predisposition to chronic disease in part is genetic in nature and research has confirmed no such link between poverty and chronic disease. Decision-making abil-ity is not the only factor affecting decision making. Poverty negatively affects the individual’s ability to access recourses and adds stressors such as finding shelter that can alter the deci-sion-making process.