Health Geography Is A Branch Of Social Science

Globals, Locals, and Mobals: In the book “The Power of Place,” Harm de Blij introduces a new viewpoint of geography. Geography is much more than the terrain and physical makeup of the world. It is the culture, education, conditions, foods, politics, language, and opportunities. These things make people and places unique, and capture the true meaning of Human Geography.

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:

Positivism originated with August Comte. It was considered a philosophical approach that replaced speculation with science. Positivist theorists believe

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.

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

Positivism or more specifically, logical positivism, is “maintained that science is value free, independent of the scientist, and obtained using objective methods” (McEwen & Wills, 2007, p.8). This leads to no biased interpretation of the data. In summary, objectivity and facts are the basis of received view.

In the chapter of the film, “Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?,” titled “Place Matters,” the narrator takes the audience through a variety of examples on how place can truly affect your mental and physical health. It affects the resources and jobs available, the food choices in the area, the education you receive, or even the safety of housing in the neighborhood you live in.

neighborhood segregation, and other environmental factors within communities. The World Health Organization defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”.

According to Interpretivist, to understand the whole complexity of the world the simple fundamental laws that are used by positivist are not sufficient. They argue that the observing the intentional behaviour and actions of human beings is impossible.

The World Health Organisation defined health: “State of complete physical and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity” (WHO, 1946 p.100). Many factors influence health such as family traits, behaviours, access to quality healthcare and environment (quality of air, bad/good water and housing conditions) (WHO, 1946). The holistic view of health combines the mind (mental), body (physical), emotional and spiritual elements to a person (Ewes & Simnett, 2003).

Positivism is a theoretical point of view which concentrates on social facts, scientific methods and quantitative data. The research methods that are commonly used by positivists are questionnaires, structured interviews, structured non-participant observation and official statistics. These methods are used as they are objective and reliable. One sociological study that used positivist methods was Durkheim’s Suicide Study. Durkheim used official statistics to study suicide and demonstrate society as a science with its own distinct subject matter.

Human geography is defined as “The study of interrelationships between people, places and environment and how these vary spatially and temporally across and between locations” (Castree, Kitchin and Rogers, 2013). It looks at how society shapes the environment and vice versa. Although physical geography and human geography are separate fields they both concentrate on spatial processes; physical geography more on the natural and physical sciences and human geography on the way in which human lives are shaped by processes in nature (Castree et al., 2013). A key principle of

As an intellectual discipline, geography is divided into the sub-fields of physical geography and human geography, the latter concentrating upon the study of human activities, by the application of qualitative and quantitative research methods.

The social science paradigm also known as Post positivism consists of testing hypothesis and research questions that are developed through reasoning. This is done through measurements and observation. Social scientists aspire to science and they seek to study human behaviour, interaction and thought in an organized way; which we can then measure, generalize and replicate. Like any research, post-positivism needs to be backed up by evidence. When a social science research sets out a research project, it is their goal to find evidence that can either agree or disagree with the hypothesis or theories. Post positivism, compared to positivism allows more interaction with the participants of the research project and seeks to highlight the relationship between universal properties between the variables. The best way to understand post positivism is by comparing it to positivism and the interpretive paradigm. Compared to positivism, post positivism is more tolerant for value-based information, however is not focused on qualitative information like the interpretive paradigm, instead the research is mainly focused on quantitative data.

Positivism is a rigorous and formal way to collect and analyze data that was developed around the 1960’s by Auguste Comte (1798-1857) who is also credited with formalizing it. Studies are clear and straight forward and researchers believe that there is only one method that all sciences should rely on. Positivism believes