Describe a essay to explain how social factors and social divisions impact on the health of differing groups.
The social class of an individual has a noteworthy effect on their physical health, and their ability to access proper medical facilities. This essay aims to highlight the key factors played by an individual’s socio-economic status in accessing healthcare such as poverty, employment and environment, and its significant impact on the health of the individual. Additionally this essay also exemplifies the social inequality and its associated impacts and aims to identify the reasons for such social inequality and provide subsequent recommendations (Kaplan, 2016).
The socio-economic class is an aggregation of the economic and social measures of an individual’s work experience, the social and financial position in context of income, occupation and education (https://www.who.int/, 2016). Social determinants of health are the economic and social conditions, and their distribution among the population, that influence individual and group differences in health status. They are the elements of risk in an individual’s working and living conditions (for example, income, riches, power and influence), as opposed to the personal elements (for example, inherent and behavioural factors). Socio-economic status is one of the most influential factors of risk, which results in poor health. People with lower socio-economic status tend to suffer from health issues and have greater mortality rates as compared to higher socio-economic status. This occurs mainly due to higher cost of healthcare facilities, unavailability of healthcare and limited access to health care. This essay shall further highlight the factors and elucidate the reasons of the socio-economic differences and its effect on healthcare.
The poor greatly suffer from health issues, and the rate of child and maternal mortality is high. They also suffer from higher levels of diseases since they have limited access to social protection and healthcare (https://siteresources.worldbank.org/, 2016). Gender inequality is also an associated factor, which further limits the accessibility of health for poor girls and women. Health is a crucial economic asset for the poor, since they are socially vulnerable. When such a person falls ill or is injured, their families are entrapped in a descending spiral of high cost of health care and lost income(Fuller-Rowell 2012). A poverty-stricken individual is not able to afford quality healthcare, but when conditions are serious, they may force the sale of basic assets for livelihood. The guidelines of Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have emphasized that certain social categories of people including minority, socially excluded groups, indigenous populations, refugees, mentally and physically disabled individuals, and people diagnosed for HIV/AIDS are affected by severe poverty (https://www.oecd.org, 2016). The OECD has provided special attention to such classes and policies have been implemented to reduce poverty. For example, approaches involving partnerships between development agencies and government, which facilitate developmental activities and policies.
Gender inequality is a determinant for ill health and poverty. This is due the differences in the socio-cultural beliefs regarding the roles of women and men. Poor women and girls may not have proper access to the resources for health such as financing schemes, cash and services. Women whether employed or unemployed suffer from heavy work pressure, thereby neglecting basic health care, inadequate nutrition and poor reproductive health. Also women of certain classes are exposed to sexual abuse and violence. Gender harassment in professional women by higher level men is a major cause of work stress, negative mood, and adverse mental health (Connell 2012).
Substandard housing does not mean that the housing is obsolete or old, but it poses a risk to the health and physical well being of its occupants, visitors and neighbours. It is also a major reason for decreased mental health for people living in it. This also a factor associated with poverty, poor people usually cannot afford quality housing and tend to live in unhealthy and substandard conditions. The substandard housing conditions usually include peeling paint, leaking roofs, holes and cracks and lack of basic systems like heating because low-income families are not able to finance the required repairs to alleviate such conditions (Healthyrowhouse.org, 2016). Lack of quality housing has been related to poor nutrition. Improving living conditions would force the poor families to consume most of their resources leaving less money for food, which would result in poor nutrition. The quality of housing has been proved to affect an individual’s mental health as well. For example, temporary housing and living under substandard conditions have been linked to behavioural problems in children. Moreover, a study conducted in London showed that crowding is related to psychological stress amid middle-aged women. In addition, damp and cold indoor conditions could lead to depression and anxiety (Rohe and Han 2012).
It has been observed that better educated people have decreased morbidity rates from the most chronic and common acute diseases, independent of labour market factors. Higher literacy results in better education and knowledge about hygiene and sanitation, less reported anxiety and depression. It also results in reduced risk of heart diseases by 2.2% and reduced risk of diabetes by 1.3% (Brunello et. al 2016). Education influences health through very complex methods, and are more likely to encompass greater facilities associated with higher levels of education, interrelationships between family background and demographic indicators, effects of poor health in childhood and an individual’s social networks. Health associated behaviours alone are not accountable for differences in health status between the literate groups and less educated people. There are three probable explanations regarding the association between education and health. First, poor health results in lower levels of schooling, there are instances where children fail to attend school due to illness causing greater absenteeism. This factor can also be associated with poverty, as poor children cannot afford necessary or basic education and are unaware about various health issues. Lack of education leads to lack of awareness of health issues and their probable measures and precautions. Second, additional factors such as family background and individual differences are also impact the health of an individual, especially children. Third potential explanation is that increased education has a positive effect on health. Certain quasi-natural experiments have proven to impact and influence changes in educational policies and demonstrated that improving one’s own education improves one’s own health.
Employment is an important socio-economic factor affecting the health of an individual. Western societies try to involve as many people in employment as possible, thus promoting sustained employment (Kim et. al 2012). This in turn helps in evading the financial problems related with demographic changes, for example, higher life expectancy causes ageing population, and decrease in working population due to working couples having fewer children. Unemployment on the other hand causes adverse mental effects and poor physical health. Employment does not always ensure good health; it depends on the nature of employment as well. Jobs involving physical strain have a negative effect on health, for example labours at construction sites. It has also been observed that jobs involving high demand and low decision control have predicted heart diseases and associated with work stress. Employment is interrelated to two other factors such as poverty and education. Poverty stricken people cannot afford quality education, and therefore are part of substandard jobs, which indirectly affects their health.
A healthy environment promotes healthy living of an individual. Environmental factors not only encompass air, water and environmental pollution, but other elements such as contamination of food, genetic susceptibility, environmental radiation and quality of life (Kaplan 2016). For example, people living in substandard houses and unhygienic environment suffer from food poisoning, due to food contamination. Air and water pollution are also hazardous to human health. Drinking contaminated water causes a major health issue especially in areas which do not have proper water supply (for example, slums). The environment can be divided into social and physical dimensions. The social environment includes the groups to which we belong, the neighbourhoods in which we live, the organization of our workplaces, and the policies we create to order our lives. There have been recent reports in the literature that the social environment is associated with disease and mortality risks, independent of individual risk factors. These findings suggest that the social environment influences disease pathways (Turrell et al 2013). For example living in an unhealthy neighbourhood, or working under unhygienic conditions has detrimental effects on a person’s health.
Therefore, this essay highlighted the various aspects of socioeconomic status and elucidated the impact of each factor on the health of an individual. The different socio-economic factors included in this essay are poverty, gender, housing, employment, education and environment. All these factors not only affect the health of an individual but is also interrelated in a number of ways. For example, poverty is a link to all of the other factors mentioned above. A poor person cannot afford proper education which leads to lack of employment and living in substandard houses and unhygienic living conditions which in turn leads to poor health and greater mortality rates in a population. The socio economic status is a combined measurement of three factors mainly income, occupation and education. Low socioeconomic status correlates with lower levels of education, poverty and poor health. Behavioral and other professionals of social science have developed tools which help in studying and identifying strategies that could alleviate such discrepancies at both societal and individual levels
References
Brunello, G., Fort, M., Schneeweis, N. and Winterâ€ÂEbmer, R., 2016. The causal effect of education on health: what is the role of health behaviors?.Health economics, 25(3), pp.314-336.
Connell, R., 2012. Gender, health and theory: conceptualizing the issue, in local and world perspective. Social science & medicine, 74(11), pp.1675-1683.
Fuller-Rowell, T.E., Evans, G.W. and Ong, A.D., 2012. Poverty and Health The Mediating Role of Perceived Discrimination. Psychological Science, p.0956797612439720.
Healthyrowhouse.org. (2016). Healthy Rowhouse Project | Improving housing conditions in Philadelphia rowhouses. [online] Available at: https://healthyrowhouse.org/ [Accessed 23 Jul. 2016].
https://siteresources.worldbank.org/. (2016). Dying for change. [online] Available at: https://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPAH/Resources/Publications/Dying-for-Change/dyifull2.pdf [Accessed 23 Jul. 2016].
https://www.who.int/. (2016). Poverty and Health. [online] Available at: https://www.who.int/tobacco/research/economics/publications/oecd_dac_pov_health.pdf [Accessed 23 Jul. 2016].
https://www.oecd.org. (2016). Poverty Reduction. [online] Available at: https://www.oecd.org/dac/povertyreduction/2672735.pdf [Accessed 23 Jul. 2016].
Kaplan, G. (2016). Socio-economic status and health. [online] https://www.researchgate.net/. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/George_Kaplan2/publication/30856094_Socioeconomic_status_and_health/links/0fcfd5138d9995a6fb000000.pdf [Accessed 23 Jul. 2016].
Kim, I.H., Muntaner, C., Shahidi, F.V., Vives, A., Vanroelen, C. and Benach, J., 2012. Welfare states, flexible employment, and health: a critical review.Health policy, 104(2), pp.99-127.
Nber.org. (2016). The National Bureau of Economic Research. [online] Available at: https://www.nber.org/ [Accessed 23 Jul. 20
Rohe, W.M. and Han, H.S., 2012. Housing and health. North Carolina medical journal, 73(5), pp.374-380.
Turrell, G., Haynes, M., Wilson, L.A. and Giles-Corti, B., 2013. Can the built environment reduce health inequalities? A study of neighbourhood socioeconomic disadvantage and walking for transport. Health & place, 19, pp.89-98.
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