General Social Survey

Socio-economic class or socio-economic status (SES) may refer to mixture of various factors such as poverty, occupation and environment. It is a way of measuring the standard and quality of life of individuals and families in society using social and economic factors that affect health and wellbeing ( Giddens and Sutton, 2013). Cockerham (2007 p75) argues: ‘Social class or socioeconomic status (SES) is the strongest predictor of health, disease causation and longevity in medical sociology.’ Research in the 1990s, (Drever and Whitehead, 1997) found out that people in higher SES are generally healthier, and live longer than those in lower SES.

Robert D. Putnam, a political scientist and professor, contends in his essay titled “Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital” that there has been a decline in the social capital over the last several decades. He names that are different factors to explain this, including changes in the workforce, mobility, demographics, and technology. However, mostly it is a change in the

“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

The Social Determinants of Health are the living conditions people experience, which plays a vital role in shaping population health (Mikkonen & Raphael, 2010). Government policy is one of the Social Determinants of Health and also the one that can strengthen or weaken the other Social Determinants of Health such as education, income, employment etc. The Social Determinants of Health for Canadian young adults become worse today while the older Canadians today, young Canadians a generation ago, experience better Social Determinants of Health. This is because the Canadian government and policy maker put less effort to develop public policy so that the Social Determinants of Health are not strengthened today (Mikkonen & Raphael, 2010). I choose

Canada is a ‘high-income nation’, possessing industrialized economies, technologically advanced industries, and high per capita income (Kendall et al. 2016: 24). Resulting in Canada much receiving international scrutiny as it has a vast number of individuals living in relative poverty (Kendall et al. 2016: 29). Particularly as many as five million, or one in seven people live in relative poverty in Canada (Kendall et al. 2016: 29). Constituting relative poverty is living below the standard of living relative to the average individual in Canada (Levine-Rasky 2017). In addition, income inequality acts as a social determinant of health (SDH), as it impacts the economic and social conditions of an individual or a community (Raphael 2016:

Image: Index of health and social factors – life expectancy; maths and literacy; infant mortality; homicides; imprisonment; teenage births; trust; obesity; mental illness, including drug and alcohol addiction; and social mobility – relative to income inequality. (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009).

One example of social differentiation that Bradley and Taylor address is that people who are poor tend to be unhealthier than those that are wealthy. Although a lack of access to health care is one reason for poor health, there are other factors that play a large role in overall health. Some of these factors include the neighborhood one lives in, occupation, clothing, food, and other social factors. The first chapter of the book begins with the striking example of a

Currently, the author is trying to tell the audience that social problems can be more problematic than clinical problems. The author also discusses how the living standards for Canadians are not distributed equally. Since everything is unequal, those who are in a higher social position have more control over the economy and try their best to avoid risks and diseases (Graham, 2004). The main argument from the author is that healthcare determines the heath outcome of an individual. The author also addresses that all Canadians should have equal access to all the social determinants of health to avoid getting sick in the first place. That being said, the author is briefly addressing all the social determinants of health and how the all connect to health, but with inequality as an underlying issue. The dispute on how social determinants of health is a notion that directs attention to the social factors shaping people’s health is also discussed in the article (Graham, 2004).

According to Dennis Raphael, the conditions that overcome lifestyle activities such as daily smoking, physical activity, and eating habits are living and working conditions an individual endures daily (2016). In Canada, and in many countries just like it, focuses a lot on the biomedical approach which looks at treatment of disease, rather than prevention and the behavioural approach that is every individualized and its main target is to prevent disease through cultivating a lifestyle that encourages activities that work towards it (Raphael, 2016). These approaches aren’t the most effective because people continue to deteriorate as they require to work multiple precarious jobs that have a very poor condition and still not being able to live their fullest potential due to several barriers such as low wages (Raphael, 2016). This has a lot to do with how a society distributes social and economic resources among its citizens which shape the overall health and well-being of these people (Raphael, 2016). The chapter presents various frameworks that correlate with each other to influence health outcomes which all have a lot in common (Raphael, 2016). Such as the materialist framework discusses how the social determinants of health impact individual’s health outcomes by looking at

Social Determinants of Health in Canada Introduction Canada is considered to be the second richest developed nation globally. Despite the high economic status in the nation, there have been warnings concerning the consequences of increased economic inequality according to the sectors of social development in the nation. Conversely, as the nation is increasing in its overall economic capacity, the wealth distribution divides increasing the rift between the wealthy individuals and the poor. According to the 19th-century research by Rudolph Virchow and his colleagues, there exist an association between the lifestyle opportunities of a population and its health outcomes.

It is well documented that lower socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with worse health among adults(Adler, Boyce, Chesney, Folkman, & Syme, n.d.) and adolescents.(Finkelstein, Kubzansky, & Goodman, 2006; Goodman, 1999; Starfield B, Riley AW, Witt WP, Robertson, 2002) Objective measures of SES such as level of education, income, and occupation are the most common methodology used in health literature to describe socioeconomic-based health disparities.(Shavers VL, 2007) However, subjective social status (SSS) is also a relevant predictor of health, independent of SES. (Adler NE, Epel ES, Castellazzo G, & Ickovics, 2000; Aneshensel CS, Sucoff, 1996) Indeed, there is a small but growing body of literature about people’s perceptions of

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

Social Capital is defined as the networks of relationships among people, enabling that society to function effectively. James Coleman’s “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital” examines the many benefits of social capital in a society. However, most forms of social capital are public goods and do not primarily profit the person who has to bring it about. Therefore, it’s not in his interest to bring it leading to a shortage. Coleman wants to apply economics’s principle of rational action to the social perspective to increase people’s willingness to socialize. On the other hand, Alejandro Portes’s “The Two Meanings of Social Capital” challenges Coleman’s concept by arguing that people shouldn’t

Socioeconomic status is a predictive measure of health that has been widely used in the literature (Kroenke, 2008). It

Studies of mortality, which included social relationships as a metric, determined social relationships have a significant causal relationship to mortality. (Holt-Lunstad, Smith & Layton, 2010) More studies have been done on social relationships however; the mechanisms of how social relationships affect our health are still unclear. (2010) Relationships and their effect on health status continue to be an important area of research and analysis. Social relationships are a determinant which can be addressed at a community level. One key principle outlined by the Commission of European Communities report was not just looking at mortality rates, but also focusing on the quality of life during the