Broad Ecological Model Of Health In The Community

As stated by the World Health Organization (WHO), ‘health’ is defined as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO, 1948). The health and wellbeing of individuals is generally determined by their circumstances and environment, a phenomenon referred to as the social determinants of health. WHO describes the social determinants of health as:

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.

“The social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life” (World Health Organisation (WHO), 2009). The social determinants of health can be divided into 5 categories, age, sex and hereditary factors, individual lifestyle factors, social and community networks, living and working conditions and general socioeconomic, cultural and

This paper discusses how IOM’s ecological model can be used to stop the AIDs pandemic which is a health issue globally. This is because the number of people infected with the disease has increased over the years, since the first case was reported. Statistics show that over 34 million people are infected globally. The disease has been declared a pandemic due to the effects it has caused globally. Therefore, urgency is needed to stop its spread by reducing the rate of infection.

Health care professional, patients, families, and policy makers all struggle to understand how health is affected by behavior, economic and social structure and provided the knowledge to improve the health status of individuals and populations. Our health is affected by behaviors, economics, and social structure. Many behaviors and lifestyle patterns affect our health, such as: exposure to violence, vehicular accidents, alcohol, drugs, and infectious agents (Williams/Torrens). According to our textbook (Williams/Torrens), alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug use creates several of problems that affect our health and society.

The social ecological framework comprises of person-focused and environment-focused interventions designed to promote health. The social ecological framework can be used as an ideal tool for addressing a broad range of public health issues and implementing new health promotion programs due to its wide scope of integrating behavioral and environmental changes. Variations

A major influence on health in a community is the availability of services and opportunities within the neighborhood. Public health can be further influenced by the social environments. Accessibility to health care along with education and employment opportunities are fundamental factors to be considered (Riegelman & Kirkwood, 2015). These elements create both advantages and disadvantages for those living within the neighborhood. If we want to improve public health outcomes, we must consider and evaluate these along with many other contributing factors.

Ecological approaches focus on both population and individual level determinants of health. Ecological approaches mainly consider health issues as a community based problem and not just individual, this helps to improve community health and reduce health concerns. Unlike the behaviour change model, by focusing on a community, ecological approaches reduce the idea of singling out individuals which is more beneficial and may make the approach more successful.

Every Community faces a variety of community health problems. The health of a community relies on four factors: physical, social and culture, community organization and individual behaviors. I believe my hometown struggles most with individual behavior, specifically poor and unhealthy lifestyle decisions. How individual community members behave reflects back onto the community as a whole. Unhealthy lifestyle decisions can have a lifetime affect on the individual as well as the community.

To understand the concept of population health, it is first important to understand what defines health. The World Health Organization defines health as “the state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO, 1946). This definition implies that the experience of health is a highly personal one and impacted by multiple factors both internal and external to the individual. Population, on the other hand, is defined by Caldwell (1996) as a “large mass of people constituting some kind of definable unit to which measurements pertain” (p.306). Multiple

The Ecological Model of Health, sometimes also called The Social-Ecological Model, is one of the main models and theories that underpin the practice of health promotion. Defined by the Institute of Medicine as "a model of health that emphasizes the linkages and relationships among multiple factors (or determinants) affecting health”, that ecological framework is based on the premise that no single factor can fully explain the variations, the prevalence and the complexity patterns of diseases, as they are the result of a dynamic interaction of several varied determinants.

An array of factors like personal, social, economic, and environment issues influence and determines the health of individual and population, acting in various combination (Knickman & Kovner, 2015). These determinants of health, known as population health determinants generally include genetics, access to health care, individual behavior, social determinant, physical environment (Knickman & Kovner, 2015).

The social view of health is incorporated

Essex County is located in the North eastern part of new jersey. The history of Essex county dates back to 1666 when 30 families from Connecticut established settlement along the banks of Passaic river. Essex County was officially established in 1682 by east jersey legislature. Essex County is 129.631 square miles. The Geopolitical communities are designed by natural or human made boundaries (Maurer and Smith, 2009). It holds community safer for the residents and the governing body.

“Healthy individuals cannot survive when society is sick.” On the other hand, aspects of social structure influence health and illness. Social factors not only affect life expectancy, but the possibilities the one will experience diseases and in turn, the health care that they will receive.