Social death is not inevitable. It is a socially constructed condition that can be undone through recognition, relational repair, and collective care. When families, therapists, and communities intentionally choose to see, hear, and include individuals living with mental illness, they enact social resurrection — restoring what is most human: the right to belong.
To ensure funding and procurement efforts for health data and outcomes measure equity, empowerment, and sustainability, rather than just disease incidence or cost-efficiency, you need to deliberately shift the metrics, processes, and incentives that guide funding and procurement decisions. Here’s a structured approach:
“While considering theoretical intergenerational insights on intergenerational transmission mechanism through which dysfunctional familial patterns may perpetuate across generations, the transmission of mental health morbidity could be explained across generations (vertically) as well as within the nuclear family (horizontally). Within the vertical intergenerational process, parents may transmit varying degrees of their immaturity to successive generations” (Bowen, 1993; Cepukiene & Neophytou, 2024, p. 3387).
I have recognized a strong correlation between systemic oppression and cycles of stress, trauma, and lack of resources which perpetuate adverse health outcomes, including mental illness, and in the long term, higher rates of chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension, heart disease.
Vasic (2025) points out the distinct reality of how exactly diagnosis obscures systemic oppression by labeling individual reactions to unjust circumstances as pathology in the context of mental health and chronic illness, rather than recognizing the systemic factors contributing to health issues.
Can there be an unspoken political agenda behind pathologizing?
Do implicit bias within operational structures of healthcare institutions lead to an abuse of power in the misuse of pathology?
What is your favorite metric for measuring systemic oppression's impact on health in the context of pathology?
What metric can be used to ensure resources are allocated towards improving quality of life and health rather reinforcing hidden agendas of systemic inequalities.
I don't agree with the faster, quicker, cheaper method to treat patients. This may seem more lucrative for investors, however in the search for long term solutions, it is an illusion.
There is a better formula, a better process, a better design, a better instrument for long term success within healthcare.
→ My research identifies critical issues surrounding the pathologizing of systemic oppression in healthcare. As the Vasic (2025) paper suggests, systemic factors can be obscured by an individual's diagnosis, reframing a natural human response to injustice as a personal pathology. This dynamic, particularly in the context of neoliberal healthcare systems, can be influenced by political agendas and implicit bias, leading to an abuse of power.
Systemic oppression is the permanent subordination and humiliation of certain social groups due to their lower status within society, maintained by deeply embedded societal systems, institutions, and practices. It isn't always about overtly harmful intent but rather the persistent, often invisible, creation and maintenance of inequities by laws, policies, cultural norms, and institutional practices, leading to unequal access to resources like education, healthcare, and wealth based on identity categories such as race, gender, or sexual orientation.
