Social Aspects of Health

Question 1

Social Aspects of Health

Answer 1

• social, cultural, political, economic, commercial & economic factors shape the conditions that people are born, live, work in etc
• illness is not caused purely by independent biological factors (links to social factors)
• Income equality is central to health inequalities - poorest of society are the sickest
• Half of all deaths in the USA involve behavioural causes - shaped by social aspects
• Medical care is only responsible for 10%-15% of preventable mortality

Question 2

Bio-Psych-Social Model

Answer 2

• Shows how causes of illness are interlinked

Question 3

Culture & Health

Answer 3

• Migrartion, diverse social practices & disease vectors transform how health/wellbeing is understood
• Familiar illnesses (communicable & non-communicable) affect individuals, households, communities, state economies
• Perceptions of physical and psychological wellbeing differ substantially across & within socieities

Question 4

Interventions on Health Expectancy

Answer 4

Most sucessful:

1. Sanitation and housing
2. Vaccination
3. Nutrition
4. Antibiotics
5. Medicines (not as helpful for living a long & healthy life)

• Mortality rates fell steadily before the availability of modern healthcare e.g antibiotics & ICUs
• 19^th century - most improvement down to living conditions
• NHS founded 1948 - attempt to close gap between health care classes (universal)

Question 5

Globalisation - Lifestyle Transition

Answer 5

• Diet - more saturated fats, sugar, salts
• Reduced physical activity - less walking, cycling etc
• Urbanisation - over-crowding
• Low air quality - lack of green spaces, traffic, factories
• Smoking & alcohol
• Crime
• Poverty

Who is responsible for adopting health behaviours?

Should there be consequences for people who don’t? (refusal of treatment, cost etc)

Question 6

Wider Impacts of Health

Answer 6

• 1/3 of the population have LTCs (diabetes, COPD) - 50-80% of GP appointments & bed days
• LTCs account for 70% of the primary & acute care budget
• Around 300,000 fall out of work & onto welfare system because of health issues
• Taxpayers fund £13 billion approx on sickness benefits
• 10% of working age population were receiving either ESA or incapacity benefit in 2010

Question 7

Inverse Care Law

Answer 7

• “Availability of good medical care tends to vary inversely with the need for it in the population served”
• In poorer populations, more demand for healthcare (more people per GP practice) but the care recieved is worse (less funding, time etc)
• Routinely measuring every patient’s blood pressure can reduce premature mortality in high risk patients by 30%

Question 8

WHO: Top 10 Threats to Public Health 2019

Answer 8

1. Air pollution & climate change
2. Noncommunicable diseases
3. Threat of a global influenza pandemic
4. Fragile & vulnerable settings e.g affected by drought or conflict
5. Antimicrobial resistance
6. Ebola & high-threat pathogens
7. Weak primary care
8. Vaccine hesitancy
9. Dengue
10. HIV

Question 9

Climate Change Threats

Answer 9

• Poor air quality attributes to 40,000 deaths a year in UK (foetal development, asthma, diabetes, dementia, obesity, cancer)

If UK acted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050:

• 5700 deaths prevented
• 1600 hospital admissions for lung/heart problems prevented
• 2400 new cases of bronchitis prevented
• Economic benefit of 3.9 billion euros a year

The NHS is poorly equipped to deal with weather extremes - cold & flu