Factors Affecting The Health Community

“Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander people have a greater amount of disadvantage and significantly more health problems than the non-Aboriginal & Torres strait Islander population in Australia”

The geographic-level aspects involve a range of dimensions, ranging from physical characteristics of the area – such as location and climate (Bloom and Sachs 1998, APUD Wagstaff, 2001), to the infrastructure offered (Macintyre et. al., 2002) such as health services (quantity and quality), sanitation, water supply, roads, and so forth. One interesting hypothesis is that the presence of favorable aspects, like low crime rates, street cleanness and lightening, recreation places, among other “amenities” in the region under analysis mitigate the effects of unfavorable individual circumstances over health; whereas the adverse ones, such as pollution, lack of sanitation or low accessibility to urban facilities, amplify the already perverse influence of deprived individual characteristics on health status (Macintyre et. al., 2002; Kennedy et al., 1998). In California, for instance, Haan, Kaplan and Camacho (1987) found that people from poor areas experienced higher mortality rates (after controlling proper age, race and sex) than the population from non-poverty areas. Such risk of death persisted even after socioeconomic and behavioral adjustments. Similar findings have been reported by Humphries and Carr-Hill (1991); Jones and Duncan (1995) and Duncan et.al. (1993), supporting the hypothesis of the social environment´s influence over health, independently of the individual-level.

San Diego is a nice place to live because of the great weather year round, an abundance of job opportunities, access to healthcare, and

There is growing research into what has become known as the social determinants of health; the central claim arising from this research is that “various social factors have a strong influence on population health and on inequalities in health outcomes across social groups”. (Preda & Voigt, 2015) Social determinants of health are conditions in the environments in which people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality of life outcomes and risks. Conditions such as social, economic, and physical in various environments and settings such as school, church, work, or neighborhood have been referred to as “place”. (HP 2020) According to Healthy People 2020 (2016) understanding the relationship between how population groups experience “place” and the impact of “place” on health is fundamental to the social determinants of health. Healthy People 2020 (2016) have developed an approach to social determinants by organizing a “place-based” framework, reflecting five key areas of social determinants of health. Each of these five determinant areas, economic stability, education, social and community context, health and healthcare, neighborhood and built environment; reflects a number of critical components that make up the underlying factors in the arena of social determinants of health. Differences in social, economic, and environmental circumstances lead to health inequalities that are socially produced and therefore

A community’s health can be established through a myriad of differing factors. Three specific factors that will help to determine the health of the county in which I live are community safety, disaster preparedness, as well as an analysis of the population. The community under review, Merced, is located in central California and made up of seventeen cities and communities whose individual populations do not exceed more than 75,000 and covers an area of approximately 1,972 square miles (United States Census Bureau, 2010) with a total population of approximately 255,793 people in 2010 (Merced County California, 2012).

emphasis was on relationships to family, group and country rather than the development of an

In Fresno, California, from 2011-2012 “78.6% of Latinos, 35.4% Asian, and 64.9% White were considered overweight or obese.” (“Obesity Rates for Adults,” 2017) Health disparities take a huge role in the health care. Disparities occur across many dimensions, including race, socioeconomic status, location, sexual orientation, and age. Low income communities face obstacles that provide quality care. For instance, in Latino or Asian neighborhoods language barriers minimize the access of health care because many residents are unable to speak English, preventing them from seeking proper help. For example,

these issues though those might be temporary. A final solution will have to be a national policy change in immigration, however, until then we could pursue some international options to aid undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Conditions of birth and people’s growth, lifestyles, occupations and age strongly influence their health. This essay focuses on children between the ages of zero to 19 and examines what the social determinants of health are. Firstly, it attempts to analyse poverty, family violence, addiction and the impacts on the health of younger New Zealanders who are exposed to those determinants. Secondly, strategies, initiatives and prevention services are identified at national, regional and local levels to investigate what the government and other non-government organisations are doing to ensure that the rights of children are being upheld. Children deserve to have the best start in life to enable healthy growth and development of their own special skills and talents. They need warm, healthy homes to live in, good nutritious food to give them energy to grow and learn, and opportunities for education, along with other activities that help them progress through life. They need the support and care of their parents, whanau and communities that have their best interests at heart.

Norma James is a 65 years old widow who lives alone. Mrs. James has a medical history of Type 2 diabetes mellitus and hypertension and has also been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. Mrs. James has been a smoker since her 20s and smokes about a ½ pack of cigarettes per day. She has two adult sons who lives far and has minimum contact with them. She does not work and has a very limited savings. She relies on Old Age Security Benefits for income. She has been living in the same neighbourhood for years but has only few individuals who she considers friends. She prefers to spend her time alone at home watching television, reading or watching over her six cats.

We’ve come to an understanding that the traditional approaches to tackling health issues aren’t very effective due to the varying factors that are embedded in social and economic barriers that certain communities and populations may experience because their sex, gender, race, disabilities etc. A prevention strategy that is focused at the macro/societal level, would be through taking a social determinants of health approach to reducing health inequalities. The social determinants of health influence the health of populations and acknowledges the factors that shape health is by the living conditions they experience. These influencing factors include, income and social status; social support networks; education; employment/working conditions;

Key Historical, Key political and Key socio-cultural influence that have shaped healthcare access in contemporary Australian society.

Research displays associable health behaviors in rural areas; “Rural adults are more likely than their urban counterparts to: smoke, abuse alcohol and other substances, be physically inactive, be obese, and have poor access to healthy foods. These poor health behaviors contribute to health disparities, such as disease incidence and lower life expectancies.” Cultural Care Connections, Rural Health (2015). These health behaviors are proven facts, which causes many acute and chronic problems in the rural community. The overflow of these problems without proper medical attention or resources, to endure these problems in the rural communities, are subjected to an increasing mortality rate for rural hospitals who experience these conditions.

Social determinants of health are social, economic and physical factors that affect the health of individuals in any given population. There are fourteen social determinants of health but Income is perhaps the most important of these because it shapes living conditions, influences health related behaviors, and determines food security. In Canada, people with lower incomes are more susceptible to disease/ conditions, higher mortality rate, decreased life expectancy and poorer perceived health than people with high incomes. In numerous Canadian studies and reports, there has been more emphasis on health being based on an individual’s characteristics, choices and behaviours, rather than the role that income plays as a social determinant of health. Although Canada has one of the highest income economies in the world and is comprised of a free health care system, many low income families are a burden on the system because of the physical and mental health issues influenced by income insecurity. Low income individuals are heavier users of health care services because they have lower levels of health and more health problems than do people with higher incomes. This essay will address income as a social determinant of health in three key sections: what is known on the issue, why the issue is important and how can health and public policies address the issue. The main theme that runs through the essay is the income related health inequalities among low income groups compared to

A communicable disease chain is the mechanism by which an infective agent or pathogen is transmitted. The chain requires an infective agent, a source of infection, a mode of transmission and a host. An example of an infective agent could be bacteria, a virus, fungus, protozoan or helminth. The source of infective agents can be transmission from host to host, an infected human or animal, insects, soil or livestock. The mode of transmission is how the infective agent is carried from host to host. Transmission can be by air, ingestion or physical contact. To complete a life cycle or to replicate, the infective agent requires a host.