Human health Flashcards
Ways to look at health inequalities
- Individual approach: The difference in life time health of individuals in a population
- Group level approach: inequality is usually defined as differences in health status between population groups
Group level approach: facts reasoning?
- Looking at health through social groups means categorising them through their sex, ethnicity, educational level, location. Ect.
- Looking at health from social groups allows us to identify what is causing differences in health within society.
Individual level approach: facts reasoning?
-Called pure health inequalities
- Promotes comparability of differences in health status over time and space
-Can hide large differences in groups of people
explain health inequalities though global south and north.
- gn can expect to live longer than those born in gs. Looking at the life expectancy in comparison to national average income, it begins to stabilise at 15k a year (there is not a huge difference once you are rich)
UK CASE STUDY: health inequalities
- in the least deprived areas people aged 80-84 reported better rates of health than those 20 years their junior in the most deprived areas
- The risk of death of men in manual work is 2.6 times higher than those in professional category.
Healthy life expectancy
TIME SOMEONE WILL LIVE A HEALTHY LIFE: regards the quality of life one lives. Healthy life expectancy is a population healthmeasure that combines mortality data with morbidity orhealthstatus data to estimate expected years oflifein goodhealthfor persons at a given age.
what is The social gradient of health
This is the trend showing the relation to the individuals socio economic positions and the quality of health.
What does the social gradient of health show us not what is it.
health shows us that in many cases the poor health is not related to average living standards, but rather due to inequality.
what is health inequalities
a descripted concept, often seen in patterns of social economic background. You’re more likely to die if you’re poor ect.
what is health inequities
differences and unavoidable factors that cause health inequalities.
How do social determinants play a role on health in the real world.
- Place on social ladder: life expectancy is shorter and most diseases are more common further down the social ladder in each society.
- Work: Stress in the workplace increases the risk of disease.
- Unemployment: High rates of unemployment cause more illness and premature death
- Transport: Healthy transport means less driving and more walking and cycling, backed up by better public transport.
Studies of social determinants on health?
- Rat park study, looking at the effects of human connection on rats. Proving the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, rather social connection. – this argues that social circumstances are more important.(Alaxander and Fraser, 1981)
- Political parties and policies study on health as a social determinant (Navarro and Shi 2001)
How do we address health inequalities?
Equity in access to health services (like the NHS) - those who need the services should get them, not only those who can pay. The quality of health services is good enough to improve the health of those receiving services.
Racial metaphors: Interpreting sex and AIDS in Africa
Western discourse that treats African culture as homogenous. When there was a rapid spread in HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa, the standard co-factors in disease transmission were generally overlooked.
What does aggregated data do
Aggregated data on improvements in health outcomes masks inequalities between groups.
