Health Flashcards
What is health?
The WHO is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well being
Physical health
The functioning of the body
Mental health
Well being that allows each individual to realize their potential and cope with the normal stresses in life
Social health
The role of social connections in our health
Health sociologists are interested in 3 things, what are they?
The social causes of disease within a population rather than on the immediate cause of individuals illness
Larger social causes of health and illness, and looking for larger solutions to health problems
How different groups of people come to have different health outcomes
Sick role
Set of expectations about how to act when we are sick
3 parts to the sick role
The person is not held personally responsible for their poor health
The sick person is entitled to certain rights and privileges
The sick person is expected to take sensible steps to regain their health
Criticisms of Parsons sick theory
1) pack of clarity as to when an individual is allowed to take on sick role (cough and runny nose? Or pukeing?)
2) lack of clarity surrounding who has the power to deem who is sick and who is not
3) fails to take into account how the sick role changes over time and differs depending on culture
Social determinants of health
The larger social factors that affect our health
Things like where you’re born, live, work, grow old
Influenced by larger distributions of money and power at the local, national, and global levels
Major factors in creating health disparities and unequal health conditions
Social determinants of heath are impacted by serval sets of factors. Such as…
Immediate, individual-level conditions such as our age, sex, and other genetic factors
Individual lifestyle choices such as smoking and eating behaviours
Social and community networks related to living and working conditions, education, housing
Genera socio-economic, cultural, and environmental conditions
Health disparities
The differences in health stratus across groups linked to social, economic, or environmental conditions
Different measures of health inequalities
1) life expectancy
2) healthy life expectancy
3) chronic disease prevalence
Life expectancy
The average number of years a population can expect to live to
Healthy life expectancy
The average number of healthy years one can expect to live if current pattern of death and illness remain the same
Chronic disease prevalence
How common chronic diseases are across groups of people
There are several important types of health disparities that may affect Canadians. Those are:
Class
Education
Race and ethnicity
Gender
Class (part of health inequality)
Poorer Canadians have worse mental health
Poor are seeing little improvements compared to the rich
Strong inequalities between social classes
Education (part of health inequality)
1) education is related to social class and income, two big components of health
2) education tends to improve our ability to understand health information
3) education increases your feelings of efficacy, the belief that you can change things around you
Race and ethnicity (part of health inequality)
Racism and discrimination affect the life experiences of visible minorities and indigenous people, including access to health care
The relationship between ethnicity and health outcomes is partially shaped by social class
in Canada health outcomes for indigenous are particular unequal
Gender (part of health inequality)
Women live longer than men
-boys are encouraged to take risks
The differences in how we socialize
Masculinity today is in part defined by financial success, which involves keeping emotions and aggressive behavior in
Women live longer than men but have poorer health
Obesity and the measures of it
BMI is the best way to measure obesity
Men are likely to be fat compared to women
Poorer people may be overweight compared to wealthy
Health care systems
The organization of people, resources, and institutions that provide and deliver heath care to a population
3 types of health care systems
Government funded
Patient funded
Mixed systems
The Canadian health care system
Socialized insurance system
Government pays doctors and hospitals for their services
