Week 6 Flashcards

Question

SES and Health

Answer 1

Associated with health via several psychosocial variables :

Answer 2

Associated with health via several psychosocial variables : -Access to adequate health care - Attitudes towards and occurrence of unhealthy habits - Risky jobs - Personality characteristics  Sense of hostility and pessimism, likely due to lower school achievement in low-SES environments (which bars people from employment opportunities), leads to poorer health. - Cognitive resources - Stress - Control - Perceived wealth - Ethnicity

Answer 3

(Chronic) stress can affect health in multiple ways, including: 1. Stress leads people to engage in unhealthy habits. 2. Stress weakens the immune system. 3. Higher blood pressure & risk cardiovascular disease

Answer 4

(perceived) Low and High economic status with (feelings of) high control results in good health. Control is the mediator in this case

Answer 5

The higher education the higher the average (health) life expextancy.

Answer 6

subjective perceptions of wealth are predictive of health:  A sense of relative deprivation may lead to stress  It is not how poor one is but rather how poor one feels that affects health. Particularly problematic in societies where there is great social inequality (which is increasing in many countries)

Answer 7

Is also a factor implicated in the link between SES and health  In the United States, African Americans and Hispanic Americans have been studied extensively in terms of their health outcomes compared to European Americans.

Answer 8

Prevalence rates for African Americans exceed those of European Americans, particularly for hypertension and heart disease might often be attributed to SES. This particularly affects highly educated African American men – contrary to what one might expect based on research on SES and health outcomes. Genetics? Hypertension rates are actually much higher for African Americans compared to West Africans (who have comparable rates to European Americans) Discrimination, racism -> stress, puts people at greater risk for hypertension, especially those with high aspirations to achieve.

Answer 9

Hispanic Americans tend to have better health outcomes on average compared to European Americans, although they are generally of a lower SES. One explanation is that Hispanic Americans engage in healthier behaviors than European Americans: 1. Drinking and smoking less 2. More social support from large communities 3. High level of positive affect is a cultural norm

Answer 10

Immigrants EU:  Lower self-perceived health (even after controlling for age, gender, and SES).  Social, cultural, and economic factors explain partially  Visits GP 30% higher, often for the same issue.  Physiotherapy and prescribed drug use higher  Use of specialist / hospital little higher But, even more health issues than health care use! (health issues 22% higher, health care use 15%)

Answer 11

Something so meaningful to a large number of people might also be good for their health. =>an emphasis on caring for the physical, body as a “Temple of the Holy Spirit”. Religion might positively affect physical health by 1. Encouraging healthy behavior, such as no smoking, hence also less smoking 2. Increasing social support 3. Reducing stress and negative emotions

Answer 12

Something so meaningful to a large number of people might also be good for their health. =>an emphasis on caring for the physical, body as a “Temple of the Holy Spirit”. Religion might positively affect physical health by 1. Encouraging healthy behavior, such as no smoking, hence also less smoking 2. Increasing social support 3. Reducing stress and negative emotions

Answer 13

Impact on a host of physical diseases and the response of those diseases to treatment. Indeed, relation between religious and spiritual involvement and e.g.,: 1. Lower prevalence coronary heart disease 2. Lower blood pressure 3. Better immune function 4. Better endocrine function Moreover, often people turn to religion to cope with illness

Answer 14

Although religious people tend to have healthier diet, they also tend to eat more  Might refrain from vaccination (e.g., measles)  Refrain from (timely) using life-saving medication or other interventions

Answer 15

Current guidelines suggest around 7-9 hours a night  Before electric lighting, people’s sleeping cycle had two phases.  First, people went to sleep for a few hours a little after sunset.  They woke up in the middle of the night, during which they engaged in some leisurely activities.  Then they slept for a few hours again until around dawn  Siesta, sleeping at the heat of the day

Answer 16

From a western point of view, health is often conceptualized in a biomedical model, where health is seen in terms of (the absence of) disease.  Disease in turn is seen as originating from a specific and identifiable cause within, or arriving from outside, the body.  Views from other cultures regard health as an imbalance between  negative (yin) and positive (yang) forces in Chinese medicine,  or elemental ingredients (bhutas) and waste products from food (vayu, pitta and kaph) in Indian Ayurvedic medicine.  Alternative common view: diseases are due to supernatural causes, such as witches, demons, or ghosts.

Answer 17

In France, the metaphor of the body is the “terrain”, which emphasizes a sense of balance.  French doctors prescribe more long rests and spa visits.  Use of tonics and vitamins to strengthen immune system  Dirt and germs can strengthen one’s terrain; thus, there is less emphasis on daily bathing.

Answer 18

the body is a machine, threatened by external factors  American doctors are more likely to do surgery (to fix malfunctioning parts).  Germs are key threat to health  Doctors prescribe more antibiotics than anywhere else

Answer 19

These distinctions might seem clear-cut, but people can simultaneously hold views grounded in different traditions.  A patient might seek out traditional care for 1 type of complaint while seeking biomedical care for another complaint, or both simultaneously.  For example:  Yoga in West  Rise use Western medicine in Eastern cultures  Documentary de Outsiders on healthcare

Answer 20

Woman is coughing & Telegrams husband to come  Anthropologist Jacobson-Widding asks “Why not hospital?”  Woman was shocked; a doctor? Only husband could help.  She just had a miscarriage -> hot condition  Husband was in military service in the capital, you know what men will do then …  Now that cough, chirindi.  His escapades would only worsen her hot condition  He had to come home immediately to sleep with her and lower the heat  Otherwise she might die

Answer 21

Diagnosis does not exist in Asian cultures  Prevalence of individual symptoms also much lower in Japan  Women who see menopause as a medical condition rate it significantly more negatively than those who view it as a life transition or a symbol of aging.  We can interpret the same sensations and experiences in different ways depending on culture, leading to different diagnoses and treatments

Answer 22

Ethnic/ racial group differences in experimental pain perception  African Americans consistently show lower pain tolerance and often lower pain threshold than non-Hispanic whites  May be influenced by  Genetic differences  Methodological factors (e.g., biased sampling)  Language issues  Life-experiences

Answer 23

Increase prescription opioid oxycodone from 2.8% in 2010 to 14.2% in 2017.  Opioid crisis in USA (130 deaths a day, 2.1 million w opioid use disorder), also increasing in Nl.  Possible reasons, 1. Changing views on pain – not wanting to accept pain as part of life 2. Pharmaceutics industry (downplay risks, aggressive marketing) 3. Misperception of addictiveness 4. Hospital quality judged based on pain scores

Answer 24

Dutch view:  Patients wait before they call upon doctor  Doctors are reluctant to prescribe medication or refer to specialist  GP is gatekeeper: refers further, or not In, for example, Greece, one will contact doctor much more quickly, directly at the hospital, and receive medication, including antibiotics.  Also in USA many more medications available over the counter

Answer 25

Improvement rates upon placebo use  Brazil 7%  Denmark & Netherlands 22%  Germany 59% Unclear what explains these differences To complicate matters: placebo effect for lowering blood pressure was lowest in Germany of 32 countries examined. So cultural differences can be specific to different conditions