Social determinants of health are the economic and social conditions – and their distribution among the population – that influence individual and group differences in health status. They are risk factors found in one's living and working conditions (such as the distribution of income, wealth, influence, and power), rather than individual factors (such as behavioural risk factors or genetics) that influence the risk for a disease, or vulnerability to disease or injury. According to some viewpoints, these distributions of social determinants are shaped by public policies that reflect the influence of prevailing political ideologies of those governing a jurisdiction. The World Health Organization says that “This unequal distribution of health-damaging experiences is not in any sense a ‘natural’ phenomenon but is the result of a toxic combination of poor social policies, unfair economic arrangements, and bad politics.”
Read more about Social Determinants Of Health: Commonly Accepted Social Determinants of Health, Chronic Stress and Health, International Health Disparities, Theoretical Approaches, Life-course Perspective, Steps To Improve Conditions of Health Worldwide, Public Policy, Poverty, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words social and/or health:
“I wasn’t driven into medicine by a social conscience but by rampant curiosity.”
—Jonathan Miller (b. 1936)
“Publicity in women is detestable. Anonymity runs in their blood. The desire to be veiled still possesses them. They are not even now as concerned about the health of their fame as men are, and, speaking generally, will pass a tombstone or a signpost without feeling an irresistible desire to cut their names on it.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)