Our bodies are not simply a matter of biology when it comes to health problems. Health behaviors can come from a vast amount of sources. Our diet, hazardous habits, such as smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol, physical activity that results in injury, and genetic hereditary concerns are factors we are used to acknowledging as the cause for our health decline. Biology is not the only factor that creates health issues in our bodies. It is intertwined with social and economic situations in complex ways that build upon each other to contribute to health issues as well. It is known as the health inequalities because it is not only measured by biological factors that affect a healthy environment, but also measures unequal accessibility to important factors, socially and economically. Because of health inequalities, our physical condition is affected by social and economic situations that also shape the way we perceive and categorize it.
People are built to interact with society in a
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Being on a different socioeconomic level comes from the lack of accessibility to affordable medical care and proper nutrition. Going back to the previous example, low-income families also lack resources for affordable nutritious food, working conditions that are standard for undocumented and uneducated individuals, resulting in low pay and no medical benefits. These factors create a negative reaction and can bring on consequences that damage the health condition. The consequences result in high blood pressure from stress and invulnerability to the immune and circulatory system. "Poor social and economic circumstances affect health throughout life. People further down the social ladder usually run at least twice the risk of serious illness and premature death as those near the top" (Wilkinson,
Social determinants of health (SDOH) are increasingly becoming a major problem of Public Health around the World. The impact of resources and material deprivation among people and populations has resulted in an increase in mortality rate on a planetary scale. Social determinants of health are defined as the personal, social, economic and the environmental conditions which determines the health status of an individual or population (Gardner, 2013). Today’s society is characterized by inequalities in health, education, income and many other factors which as a result is becoming a burden for Public Health around the world. Research studies have shown that the conditions in which people live and work strongly influenced their health. Individuals with high levels of education and fall within the high income bracket turn to have stable jobs, live in the best neighborhood and have access to quality health care system than individuals who have low education and fall with the low income bracket. This paper is to explain different social determinants of health and how they play ...
Health Disparities and Racism is an ongoing problem that is reflected among society. Health is when an individual is physically, mentally and social well being is complete. However health disparities seems to be a social injustice within various ethnicities. Health disparities range from age, race, income, education and many other things. Even though we realize health disparities are more noticeable depending on the region of country where they live in. Racism is one of the most popular factors, for why it’s known that people struggle with health.
People in lower classes are more likely to get sicker more often and to die quicker. People in metro Louisville reveal 5- and 10-year gaps in life expectancy between the city’s rich, middle- and working-class neighborhoods. Those who live in the working class neighborhood face more stressors like unpaid bills, jobs that pay little to nothing, unsafe living conditions, and the fewest resources available to help them, all of these contribute to the health issues.
Germov (2015: 87-93) states that the most common explanations of health inequality can be grouped into five main categories. These five categories are artifact explanations, natural/social selection explanation, cultural/behavioral explanation, materialist/structural explanations, and psycho-social/social capital explanation of the social gradient of health. Basically, health inequality has to do with what your status is as an individual, cultural, economic, as well as education level. In the textbook, Germov (2015: 516) defines the term social gradient of health “as a continuum of health inequality in most countries from high to low.” Meaning the poorest group has the worst health status, while each group above the poorest has a better health status. An example of this injustice would be the indigenous
It not only shed some light on how prevalent health disparities are world wide, but it also allowed me to wonder why this social gradient has become what it is. I expected to learn more about how social gradients affected countries outside of the United States. Luckily, this book enabled me to do so—I learned specifically about the social gradient in countries like the United Kingdom and Russia and how it affects the health care of those from various aspects of this gradient. More specifically, it also allowed me to view the gradient from another perspective, which was one outside of the state of California. The “Status Syndrome” is more prevalent in urban areas. Within these areas, there are high contrasts between those who are well-off versus those that are not. To illustrate this conundrum, he utilizes taking a subway in the Washington, D.C. area as an example. “Travel from the south-east downtown Washington to Montgomery County Maryland. For each mile travelled life expectancy rises about a year and a half” (Marmot, 2). Marmot found that there was an obvious correlation between socioeconomic status and mortality. He ends his novel by discussing how we can all be “agents of change” with the power of sheading light on the importance of this topic with hopes of lowering the social gradient one step at a time. In a way, this has made me question what I can do as an aspiring MPH student to help lower the gradient or to raise more awareness
Health visitors are registered nurses who undergo extra training to work in the community with families and children under five. The main principles of health visiting are to ensure that children have a healthy and positive start to life by recognising health needs, encouraging health enhancing activities and influencing health policies (Craig and Lindsay, 2000). Health visitors provide the Healthy Child Programme (HCP) which allows all families access to services ranging from immunisations through to safeguarding. Although health visitors play a key part in the healthcare of families and children they also work closely with other health professionals in order to help families achieve optimum health. This essay will describe the health visiting role in more depth as well as discuss why immunisations are a key role in the health promotion undertaken by a health visitor.
Communities are sometimes largely unaware that social factors rather than medical ones, such as income, and employment status, shape our health. Our health is also determined by the health and social services we receive, and our ability to attain high education levels, food and safe housing, among other factors.
Unnatural Causes, is Inequality Making us Sick? Is a documentary produced by California Newsreel, and directed by Lleewled M. Smith. Unnatural Cause analyses the factors which can influence the US population‘s health. The film illustrated several families in order to show how their health is influenced depend on different circumstances. The film is supported by the use of survey research which it is a sociological method to gather data. Additionally, the film gives proved sources showing that The US invests billions of dollars on health but still millions of people die every day. In fact, The USA is one of the richest countries in the world, but it is at the bottom of the list concerning life expectancy. An important question that professionals
Health Inequities factors are based up socioeconomic class, genetic mutation, and environmental behavioral that affect the population. Inequities are the standing problems of what populations face. In hopes to improve inequities, it involves both quantitative and qualitative research to better understand the beginning needs for improvement to a particular population.
Health as a Social Construction In my essay, I aim to find out why social construction affects the health of our society. Ill health may be defined as 'a bodily or mental state that is deemed undesirable'. This means that health is the condition of the body both physically and mentally. Social construction of health refers to the way health varies from one society to another.
The documentary stated that over that 47 million Americans do not have healthcare coverage. 7% of Americans reports very good to excellent health. 37% of lower income Americans has poor health (California Newsreel, 2008). The middle class numbers are not too far from the lower class. Good health decreases significantly as the socioeconomic class status gets lower. “Low income increases one’s exposure to a host of health risks, such as crime, poor housing, and poor nutrition. Conversely, sick people both tend to work less and tend to accrue medical bills, thus lowering their household earnings and accumulated wealth. Therefore, low income can damage health, and sickness can lead to the loss of income” (Peter Muennig, 2008). This increases the
In so doing it has created awareness and led to a discussion about the implications of social inequalities on health outcomes of individuals over the years. The theory also provides a broad perspective about disease processes. This has allowed health researcher/professionals to design holistic treatment/care plans that does not only focus on the biomedical disease process but to take other aspects of people’s life into consideration (WHO, 2010).
The World Health Organisation define health inequalities as; ‘differences in health status or in the distribution of health determinants between different population groups. Some health inequalities are attributed to biological variations or free choice and others are attributable to the external environment and conditions mainly outside the control of the individuals concerned’ (Who.int, 2013). Therefore, while some variation in health experience is unavoidable, much of it can be attributed to unequal opportunities, that is, social inequality (Tones and Green, 2004, p. 68).
The Health Triangle includes the aspects of physical, mental, emotional, and social health. As a teenager, I have strengths and weaknesses that contribute to all three aspects of my health. There is always was for me to improve my health as I point out where that improvement in needed.
Throughout our healthy brains, healthy bodies course so far, we have learned time and time again about the strong and important relationship between our brains and our bodies. Health and wellness is not one single thing, it is a collection of practices, attitudes and ways of being in the world, which help us cultivate the best form of ourselves. Finding and understanding the ways in which we can best take care of ourselves, and then applying them, gives us the opportunity to improve our physical, cognitive, mental and emotional wellbeing. Embodying our healthiest selves helps not only us, it helps those around us by providing a positive example about how to exist within our own bodies, and exist within the world. Throughout this paper, we will