Nobody is unaware of the sufferings of Sindhi people and injustice and unfairness they face in every walk of life. The main reasons for unfairness and injustices are due to multiple known and unknown factors. The most important factors, among others, are arbitrary military rules, exploitation of Sindh's natural resources, corruption and its feudal society. All these factors, have contributed towards sense of deprivation, unfairness, injustice and to some extent in sense of alienation. It has now come to be known that unfairness and injustices have serious health impacts as well. So far no study has been conducted to find out the health impact of injustices meted out to Sindhi people during different periods. Such studies are costly and take long time to find results. There is definitive need for starting such a prospective study. This has become more important now because of two reasons. 1. The magnitude of injustices and unfairness to Sindhi people have seen sharp increase in more recent times, and 2. Another study, conducted elsewhere on a different sample of population has proved that there is definitive impact of sense of deprivation, injustice and unfairness on health, especially on causation of heart diseases. The findings of that study can be extrapolated to Sindhi population to some extent. However, to find out impact of injustices and unfairness meted out to Sindhis in more precise quantitative and qualitative terms, a separate specific study is required. We have all the expertise and are able to conduct such a credible unbiased prospective study spanned over 5, 10 or 15 years but we lack financial resources. In any case, until we are able to conduct our own studies and research, let us accept the results of study conducted by others (see below) and extrapolate it to our Sindhi society.
Sense of injustice causes heart disease
15 May 2007
A team of researchers from UCL Epidemiology & Public Health have shown that people who feel they are treated unfairly are at heightened risk of experiencing heart problems.
5726 men and 2572 women from 20 civil service departments in London participated in the research as part of the long-term Whitehall II study.
The findings, published in the current issue of the 'Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health', show that repeated experiences of injustice in different areas of life family, the workplace or society in general may produce negative stress-related reactions that, in the long term, increase the risk of a heart attack.
The participants were asked to score their responses to the statement: "I often have the feeling that I am being treated unfairly" on a scale of one to six, with one being 'strongly disagree' and six being 'strongly agree'.
Their mental and physical health was tracked for an average of 11 years, using validated health and quality-of-life surveys and data on ill health and death.
During the monitoring period, there were 528 new cases of fatal and non-fatal heart attack and angina in people who had had no signs of heart disease when the study began.
Just under 3,000 people felt they were unfairly treated, and when all the figures were adjusted to take account of traditional coronary risk factors, gender, age, socioeconomic position, chronic work stress and unfair treatment at work the results showed that a heightened sense of injustice directly corresponded to risk of a heart attack or angina.
People who scored five or six were 55 per cent more likely to have serious heart disease as those who did not feel they were unfairly treated and twice as likely to have it as those who scored one or two. Participants in lower socioeconomic positions and women were more likely to be exposed to everyday acts of injustice.
Lead author Dr Roberto De Vogli (UCL Epidemiology & Public Health) commented: "Although people may consider fair what is unfair and vice versa according to some subjective expectations, adjustment for a personality characteristic such as hostility did not reduce the effect of unfairness on heart disease. I understand that this is a long shot, but the key message is that we must try to promote fairness in society."
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Full text of the study is available at http://jech.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/61/6/513
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Mir Atta M. Talpur
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