Social Determinants Of Health Essay

According to the dictionary, the word health is “the state of being free from illness.” At a first glance, this defination seems to be very direct and simple, however the meaning of the word ‘health’ nowadays is much more complex. The above definition pretty much sums up our view of health in the first half of the 20th century.

Health has been influenced by many factors such as poor health status, disease risk factors, and limited access to healthcare. All these factors are due to social, economic and environmental disadvantages. According to the World Organization (WHO) (2015), “the social determinants of health are mostly responsible for health inequities, which is the unfair and avoidable differences in health status seen within and between countries”

Health is a concept that relates to and describes a person's state of being. It is highly subjective as good health means different things to different people, and its meaning varies according to individual and community expectations and contexts. In this paper the definition of health, care and wellbeing is looked from an Aboriginal perspective taking into account the history of Aboriginal health and contemporary issues in health and wellbeing of Aboriginal communities.

The determinants of health are economic and social conditions that affect people’s health status. These influence the living and working conditions that impacts people’s everyday living condition. Factors such as the place and the environment we live in, genetics, educational level or work status and income, as well as friends and family are some of the aspects that affects our health condition. On the other hand, the people that have an access to good health care and have financial stability are less susceptible and are often less affected. (NANB, 2009)

Homelessness is a major health policy issue that needs to be addressed. The amount of people that are becoming homeless in Canada is increasing drastically. This population of people face some barriers that limits their access to healthcare, in that way it results in poor health outcomes. The question is how can the country improve access to healthcare for its homeless population. This essay will talk about homelessness and access to healthcare and why it is important, several social determinant of health issues that are relevant to this policy issue, and what role values have played in shaping this health policy issue.

Health and social justice have continued to be a major problem that affects the way people live and chance of illness, and consequent risk of premature death. The recent report from the World Health Organization shows that health disparities have continued to persist within and among countries and different regions of the world. For example, infectious diseases and undernutrition are common in poor and developing countries (WHO, 2018). The gap is even much worse between the rural and urban dwellers because of the economic differences and availability of healthcare services. Although some of the developed nations have attempted

There are three main determinants of health, these are social determinants, biomedical risk factors and behavioral risk factors. All these determine how long people are likely to stay healthy or avoid injury (Australia Institution of Health and Welfare, 2016). Social determinants of health refer to the social and economic conditions that influence people’s health status such as living, working and growing conditions (National Rural Health Alliance LTD, 2017), for example people with poorer social determinants have a higher risk or poor health compared to people with more advantages (Australia Institution of Health and Welfare, 2016). There are many different determinants of social health however social exclusion has a huge impact on people’s health and well-being in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities (Eckermann, Down, Chong, Nixon, Gray & Johnson, 2010). Social exclusion describes the lack of recourses, opportunities, participation and skills (Australia Institution of Health and Welfare, 2016), It is when groups or individuals are excluded from social factors.

Social determinants of health (SDH) are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. Social and environmental factors, such as education, housing, neighbourhoods, family income, and race, all matter when it comes to health, health care and health outcomes. However, only recently has serious attention been given to the importance of social determinants in shaping health, health care, and outcomes (Davis and Chapa, 2015). Thus, in this assignment, health factors portray vital roles in the onset of chronic kidney disease and the interventions.

First of all, the percentage of Japanese senior citizens started at 5 percent in 1940. Then it dipped slightly and recovered. As for Sweden and American, the trend of percentages of old people were generally the same, while the proportion of Sweden was a little lower than USA. From 2000 onwards, the percentage of elderly citizens in Sweden increased from about 19% to 20%. And for USA, it leveled off until now.

Since elderly populations are now increasing, one-fifth of individuals in developed countries are over 60 years old and if this pattern tends to continue it is projected that by 2030 there will be 1/3rd of individuals older than 60. Many may believe that the most elderly people come from the United States, but clear research shows that 59% of the world elderly individuals are found in developing countries. Japan also had a moderate increase in elderly individuals from 7% to 14% in just 26 years, other Asian countries will see similar increasing patterns as well. Europe has seen some similar life expectancy increases over the range of 100

The birthrate and maternal mortality rate are high in this country. Diarrheal dehydration and malaria are endemic. Less than half the people are not vaccinated and infections are three times worse in these rural areas. For every 1,000 people in Benin there are approximately 36.51 births. The death rate for every 1,000 people is about 8.39. The infant mortality rate for males is around 60.26 deaths per 1,000 births, females is 53.76 per 1,000 births. Life expectancy for males is averaged out at 59.75, a female’s life expectancy is slightly high at 62.47 years of

The plotted data shows that there is a negative correlation between crude death rate and income per capita across countries but the slope becomes less steep throughout the time period. In Sub-Saharan Africa, there is a high crude death rate with lower income, compared to other regions while in Middle East and North Africa, there is a lower crude death rate with higher income. There are some factors that might influence the death rate such as sanitation facilities and health care system. Systems in high-income countries are much better than those in low-income countries. Within that time frame, there were some unusual patterns throughout the time period. From 1975 to 1980, there was a drastic increase in the death rate in Timor-Leste and Cambodia.

The data were extracted from the national longitudinal survey, Health and Retirement Study (HRS), which was started from 1992 by studying the population of age range 51-61 and their spouses through re-interviews every two years. Later, the study population was extended to the population above 51 years, resulting to 11 waves at present which was collected in RAND HRS file. The purpose of the health and retirement study was to serve as an affluent resource for the information related health, social well-being and economics of the middle aged population who were followed over the years. Furthermore, HRS included stratified multistage area probability which incorporates stratification, clustering and differential selection probabilities. HRS used mixed-mode for data collection: telephone and in-person interviews. The sample size of HRS for

The purpose of this paper is to create a health profile of the country of Malawi identifying the state of the overall health of the country based on specific health issues. Malawi has a population of 15,263,000. The average lifespan for males is 44 years and the average lifespan for females is 51 years. The leading causes of death in Malawi are HIV/AIDS, Lower Respiratory Infections, Malaria, Diarrheal Disease, and Perinatal Conditions. Infant mortality has a rate of 58 deaths for every 1,000 live births (Bowie, 2006).

The graph illustrates how many people are aged 65 and over between 1940 and 2040 in Japan, Sweden, and USA. Over the given periods, despite some fluctuations, the proportion of population aged 65 and over all increased in three countries. Japan had the least percentage of senior citizens at the start of the period but will have the highest quantity at the end. Conversely, an opposite trend can be seen in the USA.