1. World health organization mainly describes the social determinants of health as the conditions and the situations in which human beings are born as well as grow, work, live and age. It also comprises of the wider set of forces and systems that help in shaping the quality and the conditions of the daily life of the individuals (McMurray & Clendon, 2011). Present day researchers opined that just as the biological factors, the social conditions also have higher capabilities of affecting the mental and physical health of the individuals in the nation. Different types of social determinants have been identified to be contributors to poor health in the different communities of the nation. The healthcare professionals, social workers, policy makers as well as the government should undertake interventions that would help in the betterment of the social conditions and hence ensure quality life of individuals.
Researchers are of the opinion that socioeconomic position of the different individuals can determine the condition of the life. Studies have shown that people belonging to poor socioeconomic background have poorer health outcomes in comparison to that of the people belonging to higher socioeconomic status (Lin et al., 2014). They are seen to have poorer amount of resources and financial power to but important components needed for their daily activities of life. These affect their health causing them to live lives in ways which affect their physical health causing mental and emotional turmoil as well.
This can be explained with the help of the example. People with lower socioeconomic position do not have enough financial capability to buy quality foods. The nutritious as well as organic food products are quite high in price and therefore such cohort of people cannot purchase this variety of foods. They had to buy cheap quality fast foods that are high in calories and tend to affect the health of the people within such cohort. It is seen to cause different types of health disorders like obesity, overweight issues, hyper-cholesterimia, heart attack, stroke and many others. Therefore, in this way, the social determinants of health like the socio-economic status of the people can determine the health condition of the people and the quality of life they would lead. In such a condition, the work of the social worker can be varied (Stevenson, 2018). The first action that the social worker should undertake is conducting a social analysis and studying the statistics of the people who are living under such cohort and are facing such difficulties and threats to health. With the help of such statistics, it should be then submitted to the government and the social workers should advocate about the issue to the health department. They should be then working with the government and assisting the policy makers in development of policy that would help such people to live better quality lives (Willis & Parry, 2012). They should also advocate the is to the government in ways by which the governmentestablished the main reasons for such poor condition of the people and accordingly establish several benefits and scheme that would protect them from such improper health practices and develop better quality lives.
Ten social determinants of health which have been put forward by the World Health organization as the source of concern for the present day population all over the world. These are the social gradient, stress as well as the way one goes through their early life. Other social determinants of health are the work, social exclusion, unemployment, social support as well as addiction. The two more social determinants of health are the food and the transport. One of the impact of social determinants of health that can be also discussed here is the unemployment. Often it is seen that lack of proper education, scope of employment, ill health, excessive completion in the employment sector results individuals to remain unemployed (Ferrer, 2018). Lack of employment is in turn associated with different types of negative factors out of which the most indirect effect occurs on the health of the individual. It becomes difficult for the individuals to arrange for fiancés that are required to afford the resources necessary for quality living. Lack of funds not only makes them to compromise important activities of daily life built also tend to make them physically weak and mentally unstable. Researchers are of the opinion that such turmoil situation are often the contributors of increased level of addiction like drugs and alcohol as well as high level of smoking among such people who do not have employment. Moreover, increased incidents of domestic violence are also seen to be highly associated with that of the lower employment opportunities (Giles, 2013). Therefore, the social care workers can ensure that they need to undertake screening programs of individuals who have no employment or have employment which do not have enough pay as per the work role characteristics required.
Therefore, the social acre workers would be advocating for them to the government to arrange for employment opportunities of various kinds according to their capabilities and talent. Moreover, such individuals should be screened for the presence of mental disorders, substance abuse disorders and poor nutritional status and accordingly different initiatives and policies need to be taken to overcome such barriers. Social workers need to work in close association with health professionals and governmental sectors in achieving such attributes (Adler et al., 2016).
2. Previously, most of healthcare professionals used to focus on the physical as well as the biological aspects of illness as well as disorders. This model is mainly the medical model of care that was previously utilized when patients used to visit them with any issues. This model mainly comprises of their important components like the diagnosis, care as well as treatment. This was severely criticized as the healthcare professionals did not consider the reason that was causing the sickness and conducted he diagnosis and treatment of the individuals separately from their lifestyle conditions. Therefore, this model of health was not proving successful in providing a quality life to the people as the main root for the ill health were not treated. Therefore, after receiving treatment in biomedical model of care, the same disorders continued to recur in patients (Petrakis &Lethborg, 2018). Herein, lays the advantage of following the social model of healthcare where the social workers and the healthcare professionals are able to work with the main contributing factors causing the disorders.
One of the most important benefits of considering the social determinants of health is that it helps in addressing to the broader influences of health. This includes the social, cultural, economic as well as the environmental factors rather than diseases and injury. Hence, it follows the proper approach helping individuals to live better quality life by modifying them. Other benefits of this model are that it helps in reducing the social inequities. This is critically the most important humanitarian perspective where it not only helps in development of the face of the nation helping in forming an egalitarian society but it also enables equal opportunities for all human beings helping them to enjoy better qualities of life which they are deprived of (Braveman& Gottlieb, 2014). Another benefit of this perspective of social care is that it helps in empowering of the individuals as well as the communities. Social care workers are seen to identify the specific social conditions as well as the needs and requirements of each of the communities and accordingly set up interventions by which each of the members of community feels empowered.
This can be explained with the help of an example to understand the benefits of the care. Lack of education in the aboriginal communities is making them prone to undertake smoking and substance abuse habits. They are also having high calorie foods that are affecting their health making them develop many chronic disorders. They are seen to develop diabetes, stroke, heart disorders, osteoarthritis, lung cancer and many others. Hence, the healthcare professionals only diagnosing and providing medication for the disorders are not enough. The social care workers need to work in empowering the communities with proper knowledge and health literacy so that they can development ideas about how their habits are affecting their lives (Petrakis et al., 2018). Therefore, education, which is a social determinant of health, can be influenced in empowering the communities helping in developing better quality of lives.
However, the working of the social carers with the perspectives of social determinants of health is also associated with certain benefits. Often, educating the whole population can not only be a difficult task as different people have different psychology and modifying the psychology of the people to change their lifestyle might not result in similar impact. Different people have different levels of education and hence arranging educating system that would meet the needs for health literacy is also quite problematic. Researchers are of the opinion that changing of lifestyles is often considered to be a very difficult procedure and participants often states that they cannot keep themselves motivated to change their lifestyles. Other limitations are that advocating the issues to the government and the time taken by the government to analyze and develop the programs are quite extensive (Carpenter, Nohria& Meyers, 2018). The interventions, which are taken to care for the social determinants of health, are time consuming and unlike the medication interventions of the biomedical care, require time to show effects. Researchers have clearly shown that results of such methods of social care are not evident until after a long period and it becomes also difficult to measure its effectiveness. Therefore, the social workers while caring for the citizens should consider these limitations.
References:
Adler, N. E., Cutler, D. M., Jonathan, J. E., Galea, S., Glymour, M., Koh, H. K., &Satcher, D. (2016). Addressing social determinants of health and health disparities. National Academy of Medicine. Perspectives: Vital Directions for Health and Health Care Initiative.
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.
Carpenter, E., Nohria, R., & Meyers, S. (2018). Greater Lawrence Family Health Center Food Insecurity Campaign: Building Partnerships within Communities to Address Social Determinants of Health and Promote Health Equity.
Ferrer, R. L. (2018). Social Determinants of Health. In Chronic Illness Care (pp. 435-449). Springer, Cham.
Giles, R. (2013). Contemporary issues in the health social work. In M. Connolly & L. Harms (Eds., Ch.14, pp. 179-193) Social work – Context and practice. South Melbourne, Vic: Oxford University Press.
Lin, V., Smith, J. & Fawkes, S. (2014). Health in Australia today: Health status, the health-care system and the place of public health. In Public health practice in Australia – The organised effort (Ch. 3, pp. 38 – 60). Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin.
McMurray, A. &Clendon, J. (2011). Community health and wellness: A socio-ecological approach (4th ed). Marrickville, NSW: Elsevier (pp. 5-27).
Petrakis, M., &Lethborg, C. (2018). An introduction to health and health services practice, and the social determinants of health. In M. Petrakis (Ed.), Social work practice in health: An introduction to contexts, theories and skills. (pp. 3-20). Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin
Stevenson, F. (2018). Social Determinants of Health. Sociology as Applied to Health and Medicine, 23.
Willis, E. & Parry, Y. (2012). The Australian health care system. In E. Willis, L. Reynolds & H. Keleher (Eds., Ch. 1, pp. 3-12) Understanding the Australian health care system. Sydney, NSW: Elsevier
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