Impact Of SES And Social Situation On Health: Essay Topics And Discussion

Definition of the key words

Topic: Impact of SES and Social situation on health

Researchers express the health of an individual through a variety of components that include genetic inheritance, individual actions, accessibility to high quality healthcare assets, and physical and cultural environment (social situation). The health of an individual is usually related to the individual’s socioeconomic status (SES) and social situation. During the 1960s, the researchers used to think that with the help of medical technology and economic development, health problems could be diminished in the developed nations (Wang and Geng 2019). Though, later, it was observed that the health issues did not decrease. Instead, it increased at an exponential rate, especially in countries like the United States and Europe. Since a long time, there has been a significant number of evidence of the social variables like the poverty, socioeconomic status (SES) and social situation which proved that this is related to the health of an individual (Wang and Geng 2019).       

According to a significant number of researches, a healthy lifestyle is a series of behavioural actions due to which people can manage and enhance the health based on the specific type of inspirations, standards, skills, and knowledge which comprises of healthy, stress bursting, or pleasing actions (Imas et  al. 2018). The life of an individual consists of various kind of activities which are risky to health as smoking, drinking, and sedentariness and behaviours which are healthy for health like having a healthy diet, daily exercising and socially active (Manuel et al. 2016). According to a report, life expectancy in the UK has decreased by 2.1 years due to unhealthy behaviours (Manuel et al. 2016). This paper examined several literature articles and research materials which identified different ways through which an individual’s socio-economic status and social situation can impact their health.

This paper has used the search strategy approach to discover the desired journals and research papers that are related to the topic (Lunny, McKenzie and McDonald 2016). The following online databases were used to look for the research materials, PubMed, NCBI, CINAHL, Web of Science, Scopus and Google scholar.

The inclusion criteria for the paper were – those journals and research materials that provided information related to the interventions for the development of the health of an individual or ways through which socio-economic status and social situation impact the health of an individual were included; the papers which provided the incidence or the population rate of the people having unhealthy behaviours were included; this paper utilized different kind of papers such as the quantitative and qualitative research papers, literature reviews, evidence-based papers and different books; papers which were published in only English language were included.

The exclusion criteria for the paper were – papers published in language except English were excluded; papers which are published and are now older than last 10 years were excluded; journals which did not involve any details related to the keywords mentioned above mentioned were not included.

The main keywords which helped in the look out of the study papers relevant to the research topic are socio-economic status, social situation, physical and cultural environment, lifestyle, physical and psychological health.

Discussion

Socio-economic status – It is defined as the social position of an individual or a group in between the population. It is decided based on different components such as financial condition, education, occupation and accessibility to shelter or home. The researchers usually use it as a mean for predicting the behaviour of the individual or the group (Jones and Lomas 2015).

Social situation – It is a combination of several elements that involve relationships, people, culture, and various dynamic process.

Physical and cultural environment – The physical environment is a combination of all the elements which are present in our surroundings with which a person interacts daily such as air, water, earth, people and many more. The cultural environment is a combination of a set of principles, actions, responsibilities and behaviors that are demonstrated by every individual found to be common in between a population (Sloan, Conner and Gough 2015).

Lifestyle – It is the wishes, thoughts, attitude, and behavioral patterns of a person, community, or culture (Sahana, Bhat, Harshitha and Bhat 2019).

Physical and psychological health – The physical health of an individual can be defined as the body’s condition of an individual that consist of all the diseases and the fitness of the body. The psychological health of an individual involves the emotional, mental, and social well-being of a person.

Determining the relationship between heath and socio-economic status have been found to be the primary focus of many researchers who conducted study in this area to evaluate how one is impacted by the other. Being healthy refers to attaining a complete physical and mental wellbeing which can be easily achieved by making healthy lifestyle choices and practicing healthy habits. However, the choice of lifestyle is greatly influenced by an individual’s socio economic status and thus, economic development is essential to reduce these behavioral patterns and promote health through healthy practices (Wang and Geng 2019). Healthy lifestyle involves a set of behavioral patterns that promotes health and wellbeing based on some motivations, abilities and norms. Researches have also supported the fact that knowledge and awareness play an important role in motivating people to practice healthy lifestyle choices in order to promote their health (Wang and Geng 2019). Every individual should possess adequate knowledge about their heath and should also know how to effectively manage their health condition by making healthy lifestyle choices. There are many evidences that have shown how lifestyle choices impact an individual’s health and how socioeconomic status impacts an individual’s choice of lifestyle.

Researches have also shown that people with a lower socio economic class are more likely to face health disparity and often discriminated from availing the health services which are meant to be equal and common from every citizens. A lower financial status acts as a barrier in getting a proper, healthy and desirable lifestyle, and thus, people with a lower socio economic status are more susceptible to face serious health conditions. Researches have shown that a lower income and deprivation from accessing the necessary resources can increase the risk of severe health consequences. People with a lower socioeconomic status are also susceptible to health disparity that again decrease the health outcome and lead to serious health complications that can even lead to mortality.

Conclusion

People with lower socio economic status are more likely to practice some behavioral patterns that have detrimental effects on their health. Besides, the behavioral patterns, other factors like social situation also impacts health of an individual.  The environment or locality can also have serious impact on their health. The socioeconomic status of the locality also influences public services availability, housing conditions, population rates, pollution levels and other factors that impact their health. In the UK, inequality in health outcomes have been found to be a significant concern for over 150 years. People with lower socio economic status have witnessed a worsened health outcome which directed the researchers to determine the health outcomes by social class. Researches have suggested that inequalities of social class persist in the UK for a majority of severe diseases and upon analysis, it has been found that health outcomes in England for the burden of diseases, globally, it has been found that males belonging from the most deprived region in 2013 had life expectancy of 8.2 years lesser than those who are from a least deprived region. Whereas, life expectancy of women living in the deprived region in 2013, was 6.9 years smaller when compared to those belonging from a least deprived region (Newton et al. 2015).

Conclusion

After conducting a research on different papers it is observed that there is a significant influence of the SES on the physical health of individuals, but there was less evidence of the impact of the SES on the health of people. The lifestyle of individuals had both positive and negative impact on the health and it mediated the relationship between the socioeconomic status (SES) and social situation. Even though, there are very few number of literature that shows the ways  through which the socioeconomic status and social situation impact the health of an individual, for which further comprehensive research is recommended in the future to get a better understanding the relationship and impact of SES, lifestyle and social situation on the health.

References

Imas, Y.V., Dutchak, M.V., Andrieieva, O.V., Kashuba, V.O., Kensytska, I.L. and Sadovskyi, O.O., 2018. Modern approaches to the problem of values’ formation of students’ healthy lifestyle in the course of physical training. Physical education of students, 22(4), pp.182-189.

Jones, R.V. and Lomas, K.J., 2015. Determinants of high electrical energy demand in UK homes: Socio-economic and dwelling characteristics. Energy and Buildings, 101, pp.24-34.

Lunny, C., McKenzie, J.E. and McDonald, S., 2016. Retrieval of overviews of systematic reviews in MEDLINE was improved by the development of an objectively derived and validated search strategy. Journal of clinical epidemiology, 74, pp.107-118.

Manuel, D.G., Perez, R., Sanmartin, C., Taljaard, M., Hennessy, D., Wilson, K., Tanuseputro, P., Manson, H., Bennett, C., Tuna, M. and Fisher, S., 2016. Measuring burden of unhealthy behaviours using a multivariable predictive approach: life expectancy lost in Canada attributable to smoking, alcohol, physical inactivity, and diet. PLoS medicine, 13(8), p.e1002082.

Newton, J.N., Briggs, A.D., Murray, C.J., Dicker, D., Foreman, K.J., Wang, H., Naghavi, M., Forouzanfar, M.H., Ohno, S.L., Barber, R.M. and Vos, T., 2015. Changes in health in England, with analysis by English regions and areas of deprivation, 1990–2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013. The Lancet, 386(10010), pp.2257-2274.

Sahana, K.S., Bhat, N.C., Harshitha, K.L. and Bhat, P.R., 2019. THE IMPACT OF LONG WORKING HOURS AND LIFESTYLE RELATED HEALTH PROBLEMS-A STATISTICAL REVIEW. International Journal of Scientific Research, 8(10).

Sloan, C., Conner, M. and Gough, B., 2015. How does masculinity impact on health? A quantitative study of masculinity and health behavior in a sample of UK men and women. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 16(2), p.206.

Wang, J. and Geng, L., 2019. Effects of Socioeconomic status on physical and psychological health: lifestyle as a mediator. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(2), p.281.