Socio Economic Status And Health

Chapter 3: “The Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status and Health, or, ‘They Call it “Poor Health” for no reason’”

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.

“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”

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

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.

In order to understand illnesses and diseases, it is of most importance to recognise the main factors which are contributing to the individual’s health outcome. There needs to be a greater emphasis on recognizing and understanding the social determinants of health, through examining the sociology theories. Recognising the social theories and philosophies allows for understanding why and how health inequalities exist in order to implement effective intervention. By focusing on social determinants of health emphasis is placed on improving the overall health of communities and reducing the persisting health inequalities. The first episode of the television series Devils Dusts convincingly displays the vast range of ways in which social determinates of health including gender, class, indigenous background and workplace environment influence each of the main characters exposure to asbestos. An individuals exposure to asbestos has significant detrimental health consequences.

Interestingly there is a large number of people that are not in the proper state of health. The purpose of using social determinants is to create the optimal social/physical environment that will contribute and allow individuals to enjoy a healthier lifestyle, and thus become healthier. ("Social Determinants of Health - Healthy People", n.d., p. 01) The Five key areas that are addressed in the social determinants of health are: Economic Stability, Education, Social and Community Context, Health and Health Care, and Neighborhood and Built Environment. Even though these five determinants of health are different, they are all oriented towards the common objective to better the environment and living conditions so people are empowered and supported in making healthier lifestyle choices and develop the habits that will support these choices. ("Social Determinants of Health - Healthy People", n.d., p. 3)

When looking at the social determinants that affect the health and wellbeing of the population it is important to have an understanding of what these terms mean. Health is defined in the oxford dictionary as being free from illness or injury however many argue that to be of good health does not necessarily mean to be completely free from illness and disease. The American Nurses Association in 2010 argued that everyone will go through times of good health and times of illness and that “the presence of illness does not preclude health, nor does optimal health preclude illness.” The social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age and how these can influence our health. (WHO 2012). Arguably one of the main influences of health is the environment that people are living in and how their housing conditions can impact on their health and quality of life.

Health Promotion is an important aspect among health and the wellbeing of individuals. In order to solve the challenges facing nutrition and food practice, health promotion is way to allow individuals and the community to increase and take control over their health. The concept of Health promotion examines the implications of food and health, ethics and diversity in food and nutrition. It is very meaningful to many individuals who lack support or facing challenges because it allows professionals to show awareness.

During our lives we watch as life expectancies and good health in many countries continue to rise, however we also observe many parts of the world which fail to improve (Commission on social determinants of health, 2008, p.3). Social determinants of health are conditions, which can play both positive and negative roles in our lives from the day we are born, whilst we grow, live, work and age. Two key determinants that have damaging effects on the health of people is income related to unemployment and the further effects this has on children and also poor housing conditions effecting the livelihoods of many across the globe including right here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Mrs Samira Azizi, a 56 year old with an Afghan cultural background living in the community require a nursing care, particularly post-operative dressing change following bowel cancer surgery. She was living with her family in an old farmhouse, 45 minutes away from town, unable to drive and with limited English language understanding that puts her at risk client living in the community (Henderson and Kendall, 2011). The community nurse will visit her for the first time. The social determinants of health most likely had an impact on the life expectancy of the vulnerable populations (Gupta, 2004). Applying the primary health care principles such as equity, cultural competence, community participation and maximum self-reliance, health promotion and disease prevention, access to health services and resource, use of acceptable technology and involvement of government departments to Mrs Azizi’s care will reduce the prevalence of health inequities amongst vulnerable individual (Kralik and Van Loon, 2011;Talbot and Verrinder, 2005). The importance of undertaking safety and risk management issues to the client’s home environment, client itself, nurse and wider community before and after the home visit aims to promote safety and potential hazards within a community that can be prevented from happening.

Social Economical status is one of the major risk factor to health and health care disparity. In the past few years the death rate in the United States has decreased but, there exists a widening gap between the death rates of blacks compared to whites (Japanese National Health, n.d.). It has been documented that people that are poor or not well educated have poorer health than rich people or well educated people. Social Economic status effects not only the individual but the entire family and community as a whole. If one is living in poverty they may not have the money to seek out appropriate medical care and they may rely on home remedies due to affordability. They may also wait until their condition has reached an emergency level and seek out care in the emergency

This research paper will focus on the social determinant of health involving access to clean water. We have focused our research on the accessibility of safe water intake on First Nations Reserves in Canada, we all know of the issues with limited access to safe water in other countries but we often forget about our own issues at home here. Over a billion people in the world lack safe drinking water, something that many of us in the Canada take for granted on a daily basis. As pointed out by Peter Gleick, “nearly three billion people live without access to adequate sanitation systems necessary for reducing exposure to water-related diseases”5. Throughout this paper we will explore different solution options in order to prevent the spread of dangerous diseases through unsanitary water conditions. Our research is going to express the importance of focusing on the issue we have at hand here in Canada and increasing awareness for the issues here before worrying about other countries over seas. Outbreaks of water-borne infections include but are not limited to; E’coli, Salmonella, Schistosoma, Cholera vibrios and Hepatitis A. Thousands of people die every day worldwide from water-related diseases; these deaths include mostly children and elderly, with some of these incidents taking place in Canada.

There has been many studied done on the ways in which ones socioeconomic status can have an effect on their health. The various ways in which socioeconomic status can affect health is through the access to resources such as education, food, work and health care, with those with more access having better overall health. A specific aspect of low socioeconomic status that affects health is inadequate housing. Part of the problem of inadequate housing is the amount of people who are not able to afford their own house, apartment, room, etc causing them to either live in shelters of experiences relative homelessness. The people who are the most susceptible to these conditions are those who have low socioeconomic status – lone-parents families, recent immigrants and Aboriginal

This essay will discuss ways in which a person’s socioeconomic class and his/her social situation can have an impact on his/her health, using examples. We believe that there is a direct link between socioeconomic/social class and health (Adler et al. 1994). I will be defining the key terms: socioeconomic and health, social class then proceed to discuss about how poverty, income, employability, environment and housing can impact on a person’s social situation and their health.