Chapter 11 - Health and Medicine Flashcards
What is health?
A state of complete physical, social, and mental well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
Health is a resource for everyday life, not the object of living. It is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources as well as physical capabilities.
Health is not just the absence of disease, its allows us to reach fullest potential
Morbidity
The patterns of disease in a population
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Looking for social patterns specifically in terms of experiences
The most important pattern is that your position in society determines your health
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Examples: why in Canada Aboriginal groups have high rates of diabetes
link between stress and heart disease
why we have high rates of HIV in prison populations
Mortality
Focuses on cause of death
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Looking for social patterns specifically in terms of experiences
The most important pattern is that your position in society determines your health
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Cancer and connection with environmental pollution
Why causes of death in developing countries are due to mostly infectious diseases
Why aids is still a death sentence in developing countries when in developed countries it’s just a chronic disease
Incidence
The number of new cases of a specific disorder that occur within a given population during a stated period
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Looking for social patterns specifically in terms of experiences
The most important pattern is that your position in society determines your health
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Example: Jan 1 2016 - DEC 31 2016, how many new cases are diagnosed in Canada
Prevalence
The total number of cases of a specific disorder that exist at a given time
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Looking for social patterns specifically in terms of experiences
The most important pattern is that your position in society determines your health
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Example: from today, how many people had this disease
Life Expectancy
The average age at death of the members of a population
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Looking for social patterns specifically in terms of experiences
The most important pattern is that your position in society determines your health
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- Developed countries: much longer, the younger you are, the longer you live; ~ 80 years old
- Developing countries: increases much slower than developed. the poorest countries have less than 50 years of age
Infant Mortality
The number of deaths before the age of one for every 1000 live births in a population in one year
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Looking for social patterns specifically in terms of experiences
The most important pattern is that your position in society determines your health
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Good indicator of wellness of country. less infant mortality = better population
Epidemiology
Field of study that focus on patterns, causes and consequences of disease and illness and population. The above terms are all interests for this study.
Social epidemiology
Focuses on same things, but more related to social structures of society; look specifically in terms of things such as poverty, racism, discrimination etc.
Mortality Rates in the 19th Century
Up until early 19th century, mortality was usually due to INFECTIOUS diseases.
Now a days, the leading cause of death are cancer, heart disease and strokes (chronic conditions) this change is known as the EPIDEMIOLOGICAL transition
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This transition means we are living long enough to develop things like cancer and heart disease, and to die from them.
Due to developments in medicine - vaccine etc (modest impacts though)
Mostly due to publish health initiatives such as clean drinking water, proper sewage and sanitation systems;
Personal Determinants of House
The underlying causes of death are often attributed to what are referred to as personal determinants of health (e.g., smoking, alcohol abuse, poor diet and lack of exercise)
However, these personal determinants are influenced by SOCIAL determinants of health (e.g., environmental, economic, and social factors)
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Social determinants of heath determine our personal determinants of heath
Example: environmental influences: where you live, quality of neighbourhood, water quality, air quality
Most important social determinate is SOCIAL CLASS POSITION ; higher in social hierarchy = better health
happens world wide
Socio-Economic Gradient in Health:
Those who are in the bottom the hierarchy, they are the ones with the worse health.
The top has the best health. top > middle > bottom;
Higher you are, better your health
Class inequalities in health are due to …
HICH STRESS AND THE INABILITY TO COPE WITH IT:
- Chronic stress happens for people who have trouble with money, they have less resources to cope with it as well
- Those who are well off also have stress but it isn’t chronic. They have means to help with it such as working out, entertainment, finding help, etc. Because they don’t have to deal with as much stress, it doesn’t affect their relationship with others as much. They live in better environments with many resources.
DIFFERENCES IN THE EARLIEST STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT THAT HAVE LIFELONG CONSEQUENCES:
- Children born with mothers who make poor choices (smoking, drugs etc) can affect their health life long
LACK OF KNOWLEDGE:
- Less educated individuals don’t really know what it takes to be healthy, less likely to have people who can inform them about health therefore having less access to this information.
UNEQUAL ACCESS TO HEALTH RESOURCES
- Such as access to health care; there are gaps within our heath care, not everything is covered such as vision care, dental care and out of hospital prescriptions. Unless you have the money to pay for them, medi-care isn’t gonna pay for them. People with no insurance are pretty much fucked.
ENVIRONMENTAL EXPOSURE
- Lower qualities are usually in power communities, and they are associated with higher levels of toxic substances
Racially Marginalized Groups Regarding Health Inequalities
Racially marginalized groups experience certain conditions that result in unequal health service use and differential health status; many such conditions are economic but SOCIAL EXCLUSION is also an important factor
All these interest with race and gender ex. aboriginals have a lower life expectancy of about 7 years. due to social exclusion, higher rates of poverty, higher rates of unemployment, underemployment, less desirable work environments,
Feminist Theorists regarding Health Inequalities
Feminist theorists have focused on the gender bias in medical research and treatment; women are also more likely to lack the economic resources needed to ensure adequate health care
History of women being excluded as test subjects (apparently due to menstruation cycle), only used men which is an issue as they aren’t affected the same in a lot of things.
Resources such as medicine were mostly given to men and boys rather than women.
Now a days, women live longer than men in developed countries. However in developing, men live longer.
