Historical perspective on how some sites and means of professional caregiving became high or low status helps us understand trends in poor care continuity in US health care.
Psychiatric aides and technicians are part of direct care workforces in inpatient units who are subject to high rates of violence but earn far less than higher-status clinicians.
Cultural failure to recognize tacit knowledge explains why credential-based knowledge has higher status and prioritizes clinicians who do not care on an hour-to-hour basis for most of our country’s elders.
Vaccination rates among adolescents and young adults, for whom the risk of infection is greatest, remain lower than was true for other vaccines in their first years. And vaccination rates among males is extremely low.