HEADLINE: Health problems obstruct
many women on welfare
BYLINE: Andrea
Simakis, Plain Dealer Reporter
BODY: Women on welfare in urban neighborhoods have more health
problems than other women, making it more difficult for them to get and hold
jobs, a new study says.
The study also found many
former welfare mothers who left the rolls for jobs tended to keep
suffering from serious physical and mental ailments - but without the Medicaid
health insurance that the government used to provide.
The Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, a New York-based
nonprofit social policy research organization, is releasing its study, "The
Health of Poor Urban Women," today.
The researchers
surveyed nearly 4,000 women, mostly single mothers, in 1998 and 1999 in Cuyahoga
County and three other urban counties encompassing Los Angeles, Miami and
Philadelphia.
Of those, 970 were current and former
welfare recipients in Cuyahoga County. Women from impoverished
neighborhoods in East Cleveland and Cleveland's Glenville and Detroit-Shoreway
neighborhoods were selected for a series of in-depth interviews.
Numerous studies have shown a link between poverty and poor health.
This one found that 84 percent of women still on welfare had at least one
health problem that stood in the way of landing a job. These included poor
physical health, a chronic illness that sent them to a doctor more than five
times a year, morbid obesity, homelessness, drug use or an abusive boyfriend or
spouse.
Half of the women - those still getting
benefits as well as those no longer on the rolls and struggling to make it in
the work force - suffered from depression. One in five of all mothers surveyed
said their ability to work or go to school was limited by having one or more
children with an illness or disability, such as cancer, HIV infection and
heart problems.
But federal rules allow states to
exempt only 20 percent of their welfare recipients from
welfare-to-work requirements for "good cause," including health
reasons.
Although Cuyahoga County officials have fought
to educate women leaving welfare that they are still eligible for
Medicaid and food stamps, "a bigger challenge is developing strategies for women
still on welfare who face numerous health and other barriers to
employment," said John Martinez, one of the authors of the report.
Document 94 of 155. 