Impact of Social Determinants of Health
Health status affected by the economic and social condition is known as the determinants of health. People’s working and living conditions are affected by these factors in their every day’s working. Health is affected by certain reasons which are heavy working hours, stress of work life or personal life, severe diseases, etc. major factors which affect the health of an individual is workplace and its environment, genetics, income, education level, work status, etc. Along with these factors, friends and family members are another crucial factor which could affect the health of an individual in positive or in negative manner. It is generally observed that individual with high income does not face health issues while people with less income suffers from huge health issues. In order to reduce these health determinants, various health and social care centres have initiated campaigns for spreading the awareness amongst the public.
Apart from the health and social care institutes, government of UK has established various courses through which people are literate for dealing with such health determinants. Various types of inequalities have also been noticed in workplace environment, outside the workplace as well as within the families. These inequalities reduce the confidence level of the individual and it also affects the health condition in negative aspect. Generally, inequalities are performed by the senior authorities by misusing their powers. Apart from the workplace environment, inequalities are performed on the basis of disabled, colour, sex, caste, etc. Under this essay, various measures will be discussed in accordance with adaptation of actions to improve the health conditions as well as to tackle inequalities in UK. Heath and social care centres, professional doctors, nurses, etc. plays crucial role in improving the health conditions of the individuals. Along with the professionals, individuals also need to adopt certain steps through which they could be able to reduce the impact of health affecting factors (Barten, Fustukian & De Haan, 2009).
Social determinants of health which affect the condition of the individuals are the joint set of scenarios such as grow up, live, work and born. Under this, education, health system, financial security, housing and the built environment are being included. According to World Health Organization, various social and economic policies needs to be builds up in UK in relevance with decreasing the impact of the factors which are leading to the health and inequalities factors (Cooper & Clarke, 2011). As per the analysis, it has been observed that these social determinants are majorly responsible for unfair health “inequalities”. Thus, the health conditions which are impossible to cure still have chances to be cured and those conditions which arise due to human faults. The social determinants which are controllable should be avoided on the priority basis. Following are some of the social determinants which affect the health conditions:
- In England, people living in the luxurious locations are living 7 years more that the people living in the lowliest areas.
- England’s average difference in the life expectancy between the luxurious and poorest areas is 17 years.
- Average men’s life in rich areas in Scotland is 11 years more than the average life of men in least deprived areas.
- There is an average gap of 18.5 years in the individuals living in rich and poor locations in terms of living in good health conditions.
- In terms of lack of knowledge and education, unskilled labours are more affected by cancer in terms of professionals.
- Northern Ireland have same situation and there people living in poor areas are dying 8 years before than the people used to live in richest areas (Davis & Souza, 2009).
Inequalities in the Workplace and Outside
Income gap also leads inequalities such as economic and it becomes the determinants of health. Relationship exists between the health and the income and it causes severe issues to the individuals. It can also be reviewed from the above figures as well as the prediction could be made in accordance with the income and the health status. Low income, lack of education facilities, unemployment is the major reasons which affect the health conditions of individuals and these are known as low economic status. All these factors lead to unhealthy working environment as well as it develops a negative image amongst the users regarding the workplace environments (Healy, 2011). In accordance with reducing the effects of economic health inequalities, UK government needs to adopt certain strategies which could reduce the economic inequalities. In order to improve the health conditions in UK, nursing services could also be arranged. Nursing services will play a crucial role in the enhancement of the performance of the individuals with less income and in the same manner; it will provide adequate benefits to the individuals in order to live the life in an adequate environment. These services should be provided to the less income group of people at cheap costs and the same services should be rendered to the richest areas at high prices. This is necessary because people with less income and with lack of economic stability will not be able to spend much on improving their health conditions while it can easily be beard by the rich people (Hughes & Ferrett, 2012).
Public health issue is increasing rapidly and the major factors which are responsible for this are social inequalities in health and it has been a greatest challenge. Public health issues majorly arise in the streets where generally low deprived people used to live. People over there have major chances to get infected through various physical and mental issues (Ki & Hon, 2012). People with less income suffer from many diseases in comparison with people of high income group. For instance, people struggling on roads without homes and with no jobs in hand need to face more diseases linked with the mental or physical diseases rather than people used to live in the high class areas and locations. For improving the health conditions, government of the UK needs to implement some advanced and innovative strategies for enhancing the opportunities for the poor people in terms of providing them appropriate income for nourishing their basic needs. Every individual has the right to fulfil his basic needs in order to attain his personal life goals. Till the time, basic needs of an individual will not be fulfilled; he would not be able to perform in an adequate manner. This will ultimately reduce the efficiency of the organization as well as it will also impact the economy of the organization in negative aspect. Introduction of employment opportunities for the poor people will provide them the chance to fulfil their basic needs as well as it will also help them to attain their personal life goals. This will also leads to the fulfilment of the organizational goals and the objectives. With the effect of fulfilment of both organizational as well as individual goals, it will leads to the fulfilment of the economic objectives of both the parties (Bennett, 2010).
Measures to Improve Health Conditions and Tackle Inequalities
In order to improve the health conditions and reduce the health inequalities, authorities responsible for these needs to adopt programme theory for bringing the adequate change in the health conditions. Most effective approaches are identifying the customer’s needs and demands and on the basis of their requirements, strengthening strategies as well as the motivating strategies could be used which can help the people to overcome from the negative situations. Apart from this, root cause needs to be identifying which has created the negative impact over the individual’s health conditions (Brett, et. al., 2014).
In an organization, caregivers and the patients both play the role of stakeholders and both the parties are essential for the purpose of attainment of organizational goals and the objectives. Patients have the right to enjoy effective and valuable services in return of their payments made and the caregivers are responsible for rendering adequate and effective strategies in order to fulfil the requirements of the patients. Caregivers are being paid for performing their jobs of rendering appropriate services as per the requirements of the patients (Mensah & Julien, 2011). This also enhances the opportunities for the organization in terms of reducing the health inequalities conditions. From the perceptive of the stakeholders of the health and social care, their concepts and the perceptive needs to be concerned. Every stakeholder’s needs, tastes and requirements differs from each other and with the effect of this, their perceptions also changes. American Model Association says that quality services can reduce the effect of health inequalities. Thus, it is very important to identify the requirements of the stakeholders and as per the policies of the health and social care organization, those should be fulfilled. This will help them to attain the appropriate goals and the objectives as well as the health conditions of the stakeholders will also be improved. Health and social care organizations need to evaluate all the factors through which appropriate objectives could be attained. This is possible when patients’ care will be done in the appropriate manner because these will be the evidences of enhanced quality services of the health and social care organizations (Burton, 2010).
Being a public health specialist, various health improvement programs needs to initiated in order to reduce the health inequalities, differences in health conditions of poor and rich, etc. For implementing these strategies, every organization needs to develop safe and secure workplace for its employees. This will reduce the chances of injuries while performing the tasks for organization as well as they should be provided with the appropriate and effective tools and techniques (Carpenter, et. al., 2017). Through which organization and employees will be able to fulfil their requirements from the accomplishment of the tasks. Workers and the employees perform their duties against the remuneration paid from the employer. In order to enhance their performance as well as to enhance the organizational performance, management of the organization needs to adopt strategies in relation with the motivation. This helps the organization to attain their goals and the objectives in an appropriate manner. Apart from this, fulfilment of the employees’ and worker’s needs motivates them to perform in an adequate manner for organization. Thus, it is very crucial in order to enhance the productivity for the organization as well as it enhances the health conditions of the employees (Coughlan & Cronin, 2016).
Reducing Economic Health Inequalities
Functionality of employers is to provide appropriate remuneration and the payments as per their skills, talents as well as according to the targets achieved by them. Organization needs to develop certain standards for measuring the quality of the services. Apart from this, taking feedbacks from the employees and the consumers also acts as an effective tool to reduce the health inequalities in the workplace. There are certain agencies set up by the government which concentrates on developing the quality standards in the workplace in order to provide adequate services to the employees and it also enhances the health conditions of the employees (Dahlgren & Whitehead, 2017). With the improved health conditions of their workers, organization will be able to enhance its efficiency level which will help them to attain expected goals and the objectives. Following are the external agencies which helps the organizations to develop standards for improving the health conditions of the workers:
- Care Quality Commission: This body acts as the autonomous body which helps the health and social organizations and institutes for developing the quality standards in order to render the effective and adequate services to the patients. Care Quality Commission is accountable to give relevant answers to the patients in the cases when they does not get adequate and effective services from nursing homes, hospitals as well as by other health and social care centres. With the help of quality standards, organizations can improve their performances as well as it also enhances the work efficiency level of its employees (Adass, 2017).
- Healthcare Inspectorate: They are responsible for evaluating the services rendered under the health and social care centres to their patients. After evaluating their services, these are matched with the standards developed by the Care Quality Commission.
- Medicines and Healthcare products regulatory agency: This organization identifies and directs the perfect way to the health and social care centres in order to prevent the medicines, medical equipment and other medical services in safe and secure manner. Apart from this, their role is to prevent the patients from wrong medicines prescribed by the health and social care centres because this will increase the health inequalities (Alimo-Metcalfe, 2017).
These agencies are responsible for controlling the unethical practices performed by the health and social care centres, by hospitals, or by any other organizations in their workplace. Ignoring or avoiding these quality standards could reduce the efficiency of the employees which will directly impact the performance of the organization (Marmot, et. al., 2012). Providing safe and secure workplace is important to enhance the productivity of the workers while from the perception of workers, it is their right as well as it influences them to put their best efforts in terms of accomplishment of the goals and the objectives set up by the management of the organization. These are certain agencies which reduces the factors which are social determinants that create negative impact over the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities (Glasby, 2017).
Quality plays vital role in improving the health inequalities and wellbeing of individuals in workplace or outside the workplace. Inferior quality adaptation may affect the performance of the business enterprises and it will affect the stakeholders too. Stakeholders for the business are its employees and its consumers. Until, consumers will not get appropriate qualitative goods on the basis of payments made by them, till then their requirements will not be fulfilled and this will affect the customer retention policy. The same goes with the employees section, till the time, they will not get safe and secure workplace, they will not be able to focus on enhancing their performance (Heslop, et. al., 2014). Apart from the quality factor, there are various issues which lead to health inequalities and the wellbeing of individuals (MacDonald, Kreutz & Mitchell, 2013). For instance, in a health and social care institute, various issues take places such as maintaining and evaluating the safety as well as records of patients, certifying appropriate qualitative nutrition for patients, caregivers’ patience level, etc. These entire factors plays crucial role in enhancing the performance of the organization in the dynamic business environment and these are only responsible for negative performance of those health and social care centres. Along with this, risk in relation with the treatment provided to the patients take place. Lack of administration and lack of staff availability in the health and social care institutes plays crucial role in building negative impact in the health care centres and ultimately, its negative impact will be imposed on the health and wellbeing of individuals (Hughes & Ferrett, 2011).
Public Health Issues and Effects on Low-Income Groups
Maintaining the standards for improving the quality plays essential role in decreasing the chances which affects the health and wellbeing of individuals. Primary motive of implementing the quality standards are to enhance the performances of the individuals through fulfilling their needs and the requirements. Generally, health inequalities arise due to various disabilities and that can be physical, economical, housing environment, education, health system, etc. All these factors are known as the social determinants of the health. To reduce the effects of these factors, antidote needs to be provided in relation with the social determinants (Jones, et. al., 2016).
Social determinants such as lack of education, financial security, housing, etc. are the major factors which affect the health of individuals badly. For reducing the impact of these social determinants, their strong and effective antidotes needs to be implemented in the workplace or in the area where these factors are affecting health and wellbeing of individuals (Lee, Mahendra & Alvarez, 2010). Primary antidotes could be arrangement of adequate and reasonable education facilities for the people who are unable to avail these services. Various countries have included the education as the basic right for every individual and thus, it is the responsibility of every regulatory authority of country so that every individual could be served with these facilities. Apart from providing education facilities to the individuals, there are many other factors such as medical treatment, housing system, etc. (Lluch, 2011). These factors’ impact could be reduced through making these services available for every individual. Financial security is another big threat for health and wellbeing for individuals and it is often noticed that poor people without shelters and appropriate funds are unable to deal with its basic requirements and this makes them suffered from various diseases regularly in comparison with the rich people. This is because they are capable enough to afford every service as per their requirements and needs easily (Lèfstedt, 2011).
For improving the productivity and the efficiency of the individuals, negative impacts of their health and wellbeing needs to be avoided. Fulfilment of their basic needs is the major solution for improving the health and wellbeing conditions. Social determinants are majorly responsible for affecting the health and wellbeing of individuals and these are the basic requirements of every individual in every country. Various strategies and programs are being invented in order to fulfil these requirements of individuals. This will help the individuals to enhance their performances as well as the productivity level of the organizations will also be increased. In terms of workplace, management of the organization is responsible for fulfilling the needs of their workers and employees. To manage this in an effective manner, various agencies are developed whose primary motive is to enhance the quality of services as well as the quality of the service should be equivalent with the standards.
Programme Theory for Improving Health Conditions
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