This article’s goals are to familiarize the reader with the term “determinants” of health and to get an understanding of how various parts of a person’s life experience contribute to the individual’s predicted level of health during the course of their lifetime. Impacts on health may be either beneficial or harmful, depending on the social factors to determine health.
The situations in which we are born, the conditions in which we grow up, the settings in which we get an education, and the conditions in which we work and live are all examples of social determinants of health. When we have a better understanding of the social factors to determine health, we are better able to realize that individual choices play just a minor role in what determines whether or not someone is healthy.
Here are 8 Social Factors to Determine Health and Infection Control;
1. Political determinants
Certain laws that are enacted or political parties that are supported will end up favouring certain people while hurting others. People who live in nations that are experiencing political conflict are more likely to have poor health, either directly as a result of injuries sustained during the conflict or mental health issues, or indirectly as a result of a lack of healthcare provision or difficulty accessing medical facilities for reasons related to safety. This can be either a direct or indirect cause of poor health.
2. Commercial determinants
The marketing and advertising business has a significant impact on the attitudes and behaviours that we have about our health. The exposure of young children to advertisements for fast food or sugary drinks has a detrimental impact on their views of healthy meals and has the potential to lead to obesity (together with the associated co-morbidities) and poor oral health, amongst other problems.
3. Environmental determinants
Living in a region with a high risk of natural disasters, high levels of air pollution, or harsh climate might increase the probability of getting certain illnesses (such as asthma in places with high levels of air pollution), as well as create hurdles to receiving health treatment. Living in a region that has a high concentration of fast-food outlets and fewer possibilities to acquire nutritious meals will, as a result, have an effect on one’s dietary habits.
4. Cultural determinants
Certain symptoms, such as auditory hallucinations, may be medicalized in certain cultures while other cultures may embrace them and consider them to have a positive value. This is because different cultures have different conceptions of what constitutes a healthy lifestyle.
5. Education
People with greater levels of education often have better health. There is a correlation between education and health. This can be attributed to direct and indirect factors. Direct factors include the fact that those with a higher level of education are more likely to have higher-paying jobs, which in turn are more likely to have sick pay and support from coworkers when they are ill. Indirect factors include the fact that those with a higher level of education are more likely to have higher-paying jobs.
6. Healthcare services
Your likelihood of gaining access to health care, as well as how well it will meet your needs and effectively manage your condition, will be directly correlated to the level of excellence of the health care services available in your community, as well as how easily they can be accessed and how reasonably they are priced.
7. Work environment
There is a correlation between jobs that are high in stress and a lack of autonomy or control, which is associated with greater levels of stress and worse levels of job satisfaction. These social factors to determine health have an effect on both a person’s mental health and the physical health disorders that are associated with stress, such as hypertension.
8. Housing
Those who live in housing that is of a lower quality are more likely to be exposed to cold and moisture, which may lead to disorders that affect mental health or respiratory health. There are social factors to determine health and there is a correlation between overcrowding and the spread of infectious diseases. It is possible for a lack of housing (also known as homelessness or sleeping rough) to be both a cause and a consequence of poor mental or physical health.
- Social Determinants of Health
