WHAT ARE SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH?
Social determinants of health (SDOH) are the non-medical health features that greatly impact health outcomes. They are the conditions in which people are born, live, learn, play, worship, work, and grow. The interplay between the social determinants of health causes these conditions to transform and change over time and life, influencing individuals’ and groups’ health differently. It greatly impacts their health, well-being, and quality of life.
Commonly accepted social health determinants
The determinants of health include a wide range of personal, social, economic, and environmental factors that determine an individual’s health or population. The main determinants of health include:
• Income and social status;
• Employment and working conditions;
• Education and literacy;
• Childhood experiences;
• The physical environment;
• Social support and coping skills;
• Healthy behaviors;
• Access to health services;
• Biology and genetic heritage;
• Food insecurity
• Accommodation, basic equipment, and environment
• Early childhood development
• Social support and inclusion
• Structural conflict
• Getting decent quality medical services at affordable prices.
• Genre;
• Culture;
• Race and racism.
Social determinants of health encompass specific social and economic factors of the general determinants of health. These factors are associated with an individual’s place in society, whether in terms of income, education, or employment. The experience of discrimination or racism or historical trauma is an essential social determinant of health for certain groups such as Native peoples and black communities.
SDOHs affect health, for better or for worse, in many ways. Extreme disparities in income and wealth, for example, have negative consequences for the health of people living below the poverty line. These effects are magnified when these people are concentrated in poor areas. In contrast, wealthy people living in wealthy regions are generally healthier. The social gradient shows that the higher the income level, the better the health outcomes, and the lower the income level, the worse the health outcomes.
Studies show that social determinants are more vital in influencing health than medical or lifestyle choices. For example, many studies show that SDOH contributed to health outcomes between 30%-55%. Besides, estimates show that the non-health sector population contributes more than the health sector-related partnership.
In order to improve health and reduce long-term inequality, social commitment to health must be addressed appropriately. It requires action from all sectors and civil society.
Top common social determinants of health
What are the specific social determinants related to health? What are its common examples? How do medical institutions and community partners respond to inquiries? These are common concerns. Let’s discuss them in detail.
1. Socioeconomic Factors
Economic factors can include many health factors. Poverty can, among other things, limit access to healthy food, safe places, and good schools. Poverty particularly affects housing.
Many factors can cause people to lose their safe homes, such as trauma, violence, mental illness, addiction, and other serious health problems, but poverty remains a surprising factor driving homelessness.
Hospitals that treat many homeless patients help build community housing through a partnership with the housing department. Housing development partners can help keep displaced people in their homes. Besides, they help with the care of their homes.
2. Social Support and public interest
According to the public health organization Health Peoples 2020, which is designed to achieve affordable care, there are different community support and public service areas and important social determinants of health.
Issues such as racial diversity, lack of social support groups, the weak culture of health equality, and public services restriction lead to hazardous health incidents.
Social support involves various efforts that can prevent a particular career from becoming a socially explicit health issue. An example of this is that black patients who live in poorer areas live longer than white patients.
Supporting the public interest means that public services meet the needs of all patients. For example, a neighborhood full of garbage dumps needs more help from the public sanitation department.
Public safety is also comprehensive and requires security officers’ cooperation, such as the fire department and the police. In particular, the police can work to reduce drug incidents, crime, and violence. By reducing safety concerns, public safety personnel can help patients avoid negative lifestyles.
3. Geography
Geography can be a particular barrier to accessing health care, especially for those who live in rural areas and have limited access to facilities. These patients may have difficulty going to the hospital or doctor’s clinic because they live far away from health care facilities.
Some healthcare organizations are utilizing telehealth to fulfill this healthcare gap, but today access to reliable broadband complicates digital healthcare consulting. This year, the AHA and the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) called on the FCC to transform broadband access and digital health into social determinants of health.
4. Level of education, school intervention
Numerous studies have confirmed that higher education outcomes are associated with better health. More educated patients can be empowered as much as possible. That is why they should defend themselves in the health care system and have a better relationship with their providers. They may also have received more public health education while in school.
Access to better housing and more and more community groups is an important strategy for better education. By partnering with schools, hospitals can identify public health gaps and assess public health needs to improve these health gaps.
Results to be determined.
Government social policies have a direct impact on the social determinants of health. The decisions a government - municipal, provincial, or federal - makes to guide its regulations, laws, and funding can influence health across the country. For example, the health of various segments of the population can be influenced in very different ways by-laws for job security and benefits for workers and the unemployed, or by funding for early childhood development programs, support for the elderly, foster care, or continuing education. People whose SDH-related needs are left to the job market’s vagaries may experience negative consequences for their health.
In many developed countries, governments are responsible for ensuring access to these social determinants of health. We know that the social determinants of health are complex and intimately linked. Still, well-thought-out public policies can strengthen these social determinants and offer the means to promote health in general while minimizing inequalities in health.
Achieving equality in health means wanting the best possible health for all and, depending on the social situation, with a special focus on the needs of those most at risk.
In order to act, we need not only fair access to health care but also working outside the health system to address social welfare and development in general.