Homelessness and Health Inequality Flashcards
What common health issues are highly prevalent in the homeless population?
- Incontinence (lack of toilets)
- Visual impairment (cost of glasses and easily broken)
- Hearing impairment
- Alcohol and Drug addiction
- Depression
What is the difference between implicit and explicit bias?
What are the reversible causes of cardiac arrest?
4 H’s 4 T’s
What is the inverse care law?
What are social determinants of health?
Non-medical factors that influence health outcomes
Are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. These circumstances are shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources at global, national and local levels.
List some social determinants of health
- Income
- Education
- Unemployment and job insecurity
- Working life conditions
- Food insecurity
- Housing and basic amenities
- Early childhood development
- Social inclusion and non-discrimination
- Access to affordable health services of decent quality.
What are the inequities in Access to healthcare?
More deprived groups seem to have:
- Higher rates of use of
- GP services
- Emergency services
- Under-use of
- Preventative services (screening, asthma, outpatients)
- Specialist services (cancer treatment)
What are the theorised explanations for health inequality?
Famous reports:
- Black report (1-4)
- Artefact (discredited)
- Social selection
- Behavioural-cultural
- Materialist (most plausible)
- Psychosocial
- Income distribution
What is social selection?
Direction of causation is from health to social position
- Sick individuals move down social hierarchy, healthy individuals move up
- Chronically ill and disabled more likely to be disadvantaged
- Plausible explanation
What is the psychosocial explanation for health inequality?
- Health influenced more by differences in income than actual income
- Some stressors are distributed on a social gradients e.g. negative life events, social support, autonomy at work and job security
- Stress impacts on health via different pathways
- Direct- physiological and immune system
- Indirect- mental health
What barriers do the homeless population face to accessing health and social care services?
stigma and discrimination, a lack of trusted contacts, and rigid eligibility criteria for accessing services.
Give some key problems which disproportionately affect the homeless
- drug and alcohol dependence
- sexual assault
- skin problems
- parasitic infection
- malnutrition
- dental and periodontal disease
- joint disease
- hepatic cirrhosis
- infectious hepatitis- IVDU
Give some health problems which may lead to homelessness
- mental illness e.g. schizophrenia
- AIDS
- alcoholism and drug dependence
- degenerative illness/ accidents which causes loss of occupation
What is the most common cause of death in the homeless in the UK?
drug related
Around four out of 10 deaths were related to drug poisoning
What cognitive issues are homeless people more at risk of?
- Dementia
- Depression
If a patient is homeless, how can they sign up to a GP?
