The welfare of children is very sensitive to the sustainability of healthy future generations. One component of this well-being is the oral health which is very influential in the healthy development of the children and their readiness for school. According to the Public Health England (2018), tooth decay is a major illness affecting a large number of young people in the UK although it is highly controllable. Despite up to a quarter improvement of oral health in the UK, the statistics depict that one out of four children will have tooth decay by the time they join school since 24.7% of kids aged five years suffer from this illness (PHE, 2018). Furthermore, tooth decay was the disease behind the high hospital admissions among for kids between zero to nine years between 2012 and 2013. Also, in 2014 and 2015 more than 63, 000 kids were admitted for tooth extraction, signifying the importance of this illness to the government through its ministry of public health and other stakeholders.
Improper teeth and mouth hygiene affects the children and their families for it is expensive to remedy. The wellbeing of the family has affected as well as the education of these children. Research on tooth extraction in the North West healthcare facilities depicts that 26% of pupils missed from school because of dental pain and infection causing 38% of them experienced sleepless nights. Of these days, an average of three days was boycotted as a result of dental issues. The economy of the country is as well negatively impacted as these parents (41%) took days off the job to take their children to hospitals (PHE, 2018).
Among the risk factors for this disease are social disparities of income inequalities, education, employment as well as nutrition whereby some children are fed in free sugar foods. These social inequalities hint on the social factors of health as contributing elements to the prevalence of this disease.
The carries disease is at the local, national and international level influenced by the above social factors of health. Another critical factor to highlight is age whereby statistics show that this disease is prevented among children aged about five years. Some of the reasons for this prevalence is lack of information about tooth hygiene since, poor cleaning methods and foods mostly used by these children such as sugary foods which are enhancing factors for the development of the disease. According to statistics, above 55% of children of about five years in 2015 in Blackburn Darwen were suffering from tooth decay (Shuttle, 2018). These high percentile is attributed to lack or fewer visits to healthcare care centers for by the parents of these children for a checkup to prevent this disease. Some parents are either ignorant or lack knowledge on this disease prompting for mass sensitization initiative. For this reason, the government of UK has come up with a sensitization program of “Starting well: Smile for life” investing about 375k Euros targeting 4, 000 children in Lancashire and South Cumbria for the following two years (Shuttle, 2018). Such a commitment by the government to this disease highlights the importance of the illness and its effects.
In the global context, dental illness is prevalent among adults affecting a total of 2.4 million worldwide whereby as a result of unchecked cases in early life. Also, about 621 million children are victims of this disease which frequently inflicts pain and can lender someone toothless (Kassebaum et al., 2015). Moreover, there is a worrying trend in prevalence for the disease shifting from children to adults conspicuously at the age of 6, 25 and 70 years.
Nationally the burden of the disease is at 27% children of five years of age as of 2012. These children have 3-4 teeth affected by tooth decay which includes both treated and untreated. However, with the sensitization initiatives on the public, there is a general decline in the prevalence of this disease from the national tally of 30.9% to 27.9%. Also, the number of children with untreated decay has significantly reduced to 24.5% from 27.5% probably as a result of the mass awareness on the disease. The children with sepsis in their mouths has declined dramatically from 2.3% to 1.7% since 2008 with a general improvement on the children without the condition from 69.1% to 72.1% since 2008 (PHE, 2013).
Various components join to impact the soundness of individuals at individual and network or society levels. The determinants of the wellbeing of a people are dependent on the prevailing conditions and the environment in which they flourish (Maslach & Jackson, 2013). To an impressive degree, components, for instance, place of habitation, the status of the environment, intrinsic properties, pay, and educational state, and the connections influence a person’s wellbeing (Selingman & Csikszentmikalyi, 2014). Regularly factors, for example, access to and usage of social protection benefits have been known to the essential determinants of the strength of a populace (Stoddart & Evans, 2017).
Nonetheless, as of late the impact of the variables as referenced above on wellbeing status has been observed to be less as there is a creating array of relevant research that proposes human wellbeing and life expectancy are not merely matters of characteristics and affinities (Courtenay, 2012). Conversely, these might seem to have an extensive measure to do with the relative status or position in people in general field which is alluded to as social determinant of wellbeing (Braveman & Gottlieb). Such factors as education, social class, and nutrition all have a course on the wellbeing of children (Perreira, 2017). In this article, these social factors of health will be discussed and then related to dental decay in children in the UK.
The word reference meaning of the term wellbeing is the state of being free from sickness (Boorse, 2013). At a first look, such understanding is quick and essential. In any case, the noteworthiness of the word ‘health’ is altogether more many-sided. In late decades, the definition and thought of prosperity have progressed to incorporate a greater number of segments than essentially the physical health of an individual, being most of the way ascribed to various investigations and examines that have happened over the ongoing 60 years (Stoddart & Evans, 2017). Inferring that the external components affect wellbeing, in this way, for the sociological point of view, wellbeing is characterized as a condition whereby the enthusiastic, mental and physical components of a man are agreeably working effectively (Aneshensel, Phelan & Bierman, 2013). Disease, then again, involves the poor state of the spirit, mind, and the body (Chopra, 2015). It is the feeling of being unwell or incapacitated. Ailment includes the reaction instruments of the body to a status that can contrarily impact the repercussions on a man’s prosperity. The body can exhibit these responses in different routes, for example, fever, exhaustion, solid shortcoming, and debilitated vision (Conway, 2012).
A basic definition to translate is the social class, which is the nearness of comparable qualities in a people about status, effect, and wealth. Looking at numerical qualities, evidently the dimension of wealth and pay isolates the overall population for instance in the UK about 6% of its populace is viewed as well off, around twenty-five percent is delegated the working class, while 15% is considered to be the second rate (Savage et al., 2013). The figure recognizes different classifications of individuals into particular courses shaping their social class. There have been abundantly warmed exchanges on how social imbalances can prompt ailment and subsequently influence a person’s wellbeing or that of the general public since the arrival of the discoveries of concentrates by Black and Acheson (Bartley, 2016). Examinations concerning this issue have appeared, for instance, that in the UK, the unequal sharing of assets among various social classes is made. Excessively, the social classes made have negative or positive ramifications for the wellbeing of people or the general public. A report by Sir Douglas Black demonstrated that the social imbalances are behind the undeniable weakness in the UK (Mackenbach, 2012). The conditions of work, business, diet, lodging, training, and economic wellbeing structure some portion of the components recognized in answer to lead reason for the wellbeing imbalances among the English (Sim & Mackie, 2006).
The Acheson report (1998 referred to in Bartley 2016) is extra research to the Black depiction (1980 referred to in Bartley 2016) found that connected the social components and their impact on wellbeing in the UK, having along these lines demonstrated that social imbalances meant the wellbeing variations among various social classes. The report described that the upper social level experienced a significantly low mortality when diverged from various social dimensions in the overall population. Such discoveries prompted the legislature of UK and different partners to go for decreasing wellbeing disparity to help the well-being status of the entire populace of the nation (Mackenbach, 2012). The impact of societal position is tended to in a diary article by Friel (2018). In this work, pay incongruities are hypothesized to be the noteworthy components forming the political, monetary, and the social welfare of humanity (Ford et al., 2018). Its effect is then reflected in the wellbeing and general social prosperity of the general public.
Further, the article demonstrates that the economic wellbeing decides the availability to quality medicinal services whereby the rich or those in high social class effectively utilize their riches to anticipate ailments and fix them. Unexpectedly, those with low social dimension are weakened by the absence of vital assets to enhance their wellbeing, which consequently mirrors their societal position. Speculations have likewise been proposed to help the idea of the social state deciding the welfare of an individual or that of the general public. As demonstrated by the UK Black report, the social undertaking of an individual can infer how disease and weakness impact individuals. The social theory (Fredrickson, 2000) depicts that a bit of the activity that individuals share have the quick repercussions on the profound, mental, and physical prosperity. Singular exercises, for instance, physical undertakings, diet, alcohol utilization, and tobacco smoking all attention on the social guidelines that can influence a man’s prosperity. Realist and pragmatist speculations develop a substitute elucidation of a similar thought (Shaw, 2002). The hypothesis makes more accentuation on how riches status is the critical components that choose the prosperity or infection among people. As demonstrated by this proposition, social class is a fundamental determinant of individual wellbeing since it controls the straightforwardness to secure resources or civilities. Preferably, all individuals ought to have the ability to have perfect work condition, bear the expense of suitable lodging and sustenance, and search for the best possible wellbeing organizations that may adequately deal with to their exceptional needs.
The dimension of knowledge attainment is a reliable indicator of long-haul wellbeing and personal satisfaction (Livingstone, 2012). There are a few interrelated pathways through which educational achievement is connected with wellbeing (Bravenman & Gottlieb, 2014). The higher instructive result can prompt enhanced prosperity as more taught people will in all probability improve educated, wellbeing related choices for themselves and their families (Ciampa et al., 2013). Higher instructive accomplishment can likewise assume a critical job in wellbeing by forming work openings, which are the significant determinants of financial assets. More instructed people will encounter bring down rates of joblessness, which is firmly connected with more regrettable wellbeing and higher mortality. Higher instructive accomplishment can likewise influence wellbeing by impacting social and mental components like more noteworthy saw individual control, which has as often as possible been connected with better wellbeing and wellbeing related practices, higher relative social standing and expanded social help. Every one of these components is similar to better physical and emotional wellness.
The diet an individual uses is very vital as it directly determines the health of the person. Our bodies rely on the food and drinks we consume for energy, growth and important defense against diseases — the food eaten by an individual supply the body with essential elements such as the minerals that influence the well-being of an individual. All the nutrients required by the body can be obtained through feeding in the right amount and in the right time. Whenever the body lacks some of the essential nutrients, then its health is jeopardized. Nutrition is more than just the food eaten since it entails the amounts and blends of the food material that can provide the body all the required nutrients in the right proportions for little or excess of these nutrients are harmful to the body’s wellbeing. It is evident that people that practice proper nutrition will have good health as by having a balanced diet. Food or menu of an individual is also influenced by other social determinants such as education and social class that is dependent on wealth or employment. A high social level can get the foods required for a daily balanced diet unlike the poor that stain obtains a typical meal.
Moreover, high social classes mostly are learned people that have the appropriate data on a diet and how to achieve it. So illiteracy can bring about poor nutrition levels of a society of individual which acts as a predisposition for illness hence poor health. For young children, their parents require knowledge of a diet for them to feed their children with proper food preventing them from being vulnerable to diseases. Dental decay is mostly brought about by poor nutrition and hygiene. Knowledge of good nutrition also entails maintaining the proper function and state of the body through cleanliness of the mouth thereby preventing dental decay. Besides, some nutrients such as calcium are essential for health tooth formation which can be acquired through proper nutrition.
Conclusions
It is worth noting that mass education programs through various channels such as the mass media and social media are one of the most appropriate mechanisms for curbing this global health threat of dental decay. As the general public becomes empowered with knowledge on the disease, then it is possible for every individual to be in a position of preventing and treating the disease. As the above statistics prove, the condition is controllable when it is handled in its early stages by regularly visiting healthcare facilities for a checkup. Most of the disease cases are those that were not treated when the victims were at the age of five years, a reason for the shift in prevalence form children to adults.
Another important aspect of solving health disparities among different population demographics is by the reducing of the social gap through equal distribution of resources and access to healthcare facilities and services.
References
Aneshensel, C.S., Phelan, J.C. and Bierman, A. (2013). The sociology of mental health: Surveying the field. In Handbook of the Sociology of Mental Health (pp. 1-19). Springer Netherlands.
Bartley, M. (2016). Health inequality: an introduction to concepts, theories and methods. John Wiley & Sons.
Boorse, C. (2013). On the distinction between disease and illness. In Meaning and Medicine (pp. 30-41). Routledge.
Braveman, P., & Gottlieb, L. (2014). The social determinants of health: it’s time to consider the causes of the causes. Public health reports, 129(1_suppl2), 19-31.
Chopra, D. (2015). Quantum healing: Exploring the frontiers of mind/body medicine. Bantam.
Ciampa, P. J., White, R. O., Perrin, E. M., Yin, H. S., Sanders, L. M., Gayle, E. A., & Rothman, R. L. (2013). The association of acculturation and health literacy, numeracy and health-related skills in Spanish-speaking caregivers of young children. Journal of immigrant and minority health, 15(3), 492-498.
Courtenay, W. H. (2012). Engendering health: A social constructionist examination of men’s health beliefs and behaviors. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 1(1), 4.
Ford, S., Merrifield, N., Ford, S. and Ford, S. (2018). Sociology in nursing 2: social class and its influence on health. [online] Nursing Times. Available at: https://www.nursingtimes.net/clinical-archive/public-health/sociology-in-nursing-2-social-class-and-its-influence-on-health/5091017
Fredrickson, B.L. (2000). Cultivating positive emotions to optimize health and well-being. Prevention & treatment, 3(1), p.1a.
Friel, S. (2018). How social class affects health. [online] The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/how-social-class-affects-health-23366
Kassebaum, N., Bernabé, E., Dahiya, M., Bhandari, B., Murray, C., & Marcenes, W. (2015). Global Burden of Untreated Caries. Journal of Dental Research, 94(5), 650-658. doi:10.1177/0022034515573272
Livingstone, D. W. (2012). Probing the icebergs of adult learning: Comparative findings and implications of the 1998, 2004 and 2010 Canadian surveys of formal and informal learning practices. The Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education (Online), 25(1), 47.
Mackenbach, J.P.(2012). The persistence of health inequalities in modern welfare states: the explanation of a paradox. Social Science & Medicine, 75(4), pp.761-769.
Maslach, C., & Jackson, S. E. (2013). A social psychological analysis. Social psychology of health and illness, 227.
Perreira, M. (2017). What is illness? What is health? – ucanews.com. Retrieved from https://www.ucanews.com/news/what-is-illness-what-is-health/78298
Public Health England (2013) Survey finds 27% of 5 year olds have tooth decay. Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/news/survey-finds-27-of-5-year-olds-have-tooth-decay
Public Health England (2018) Child oral health: applying All Our Health. Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/child-oral-health-applying-all-our-health/child-oral-health-applying-all-our-health
Savage, M., Devine, F., Cunningham, N., Taylor, M., Li, Y., Hjellbrekke, J., Le Roux, B., Friedman, S. and Miles, A. (2013). A new model of social class? Findings from the BBC’s Great British Class Survey experiment. Sociology, 47(2), pp.219-250.
Seligman, M. E., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2014). Positive Psychology: An Introduction. Flow and the Foundations of Positive Psychology, 279-298. doi:10.1007/978-94-017-9088-8_18
Shaw, V.N. (2002). Substance use and abuse: Sociological perspectives. Greenwood Publishing Group.
Shuttle, T. (2018). New dental scheme aims for ‘smiles for life’ in Blackburn with Darwen | The Shuttle: Blackburn with Darwen Council News. Retrieved from https://theshuttle.org.uk/new-dental-scheme-aims-for-smiles-for-life-in-blackburn-with-darwen/
Sim, F. and Mackie, P. (2006). Health inequalities: The Black Report after 25 years. Wiley Publications, pp.185-186.
Stoddart, G. L., & Evans, R. G. (2017). Producing health, consuming health care. In Why are some people healthy and others not? (pp. 27-64). Routledge.
Essay Writing Service Features
Our Experience
No matter how complex your assignment is, we can find the right professional for your specific task. Contact Essay is an essay writing company that hires only the smartest minds to help you with your projects. Our expertise allows us to provide students with high-quality academic writing, editing & proofreading services.
Free Features
Free revision policy
$10Free bibliography & reference
$8Free title page
$8Free formatting
$8How Our Essay Writing Service Works
First, you will need to complete an order form. It's not difficult but, in case there is anything you find not to be clear, you may always call us so that we can guide you through it. On the order form, you will need to include some basic information concerning your order: subject, topic, number of pages, etc. We also encourage our clients to upload any relevant information or sources that will help.
Complete the order form
Once we have all the information and instructions that we need, we select the most suitable writer for your assignment. While everything seems to be clear, the writer, who has complete knowledge of the subject, may need clarification from you. It is at that point that you would receive a call or email from us.
Writer’s assignment
As soon as the writer has finished, it will be delivered both to the website and to your email address so that you will not miss it. If your deadline is close at hand, we will place a call to you to make sure that you receive the paper on time.
Completing the order and download