Evaluate the classmates’ identification of Social Determinants of Health (SDOH)

Question

Evaluate the classmates’ identification of Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) in their networks. Are they correctly attributing issues they see in their network to upstream sources? Why or why not? Respond in 150 words please.

Classmate's post:

My community is located in a rural area in Oxford county, which is considered a rural county. Due to this, my community suffers from several social determinants of health (SDOH). The first being the minimal access to healthy foods. This has improved over recent years slightly, but to have a wide range of fresh, healthy foods, it is about a half hour drive. This prevents many families from going and purchasing the healthy foods, leading to poor nutrition. Proper nutrition allows children to develop and grow properly. A 2013 survey found only 13.8% of the high school students in Oxford county consumed fruits and/or vegetables daily, this was low compared to the rest of the state.1 On the other hand, 28.4% high school students claimed they drank soda or other sugary drinks daily.1 This suggests that obesity and other health issues related to poor nutrition are common in the area.

The local elementary, middle and high school also suffer in this area. Due to the area, when a teacher leaves, the spot often goes unfilled. This has limited the subjects offered or another teacher will fill in the gap even if they know nothing about the subject. This leads to a lot of problems and holes in a student’s education. This either prevents students from furthering their education or makes them unprepared for higher education classes, making many fail. This lack of a beneficial education affects the health of the community. One of the several health-related links between the importance of education and health is the risk of doing risky behaviors. It has been found that those who attend at least high school are less likely to participate in risky behaviors.2 These risky behaviors include things like drugs.

The lack of proper nutrition and education stem from this being a low-income area. In Oxford county 20.4% of the children and 14.9% of the adults are considered to live in poverty.1 While there is not an easy accessibility to healthy foods, many families cannot afford them. The school system also lacks the needed money for many activities, such as sports or clubs, limiting the teachers wanting to work there. This can be linked back to the lack of education limiting the jobs community members qualify for, along with the lack of businesses in the area. Many people settle for jobs that pay minimum wage or remain unemployed. Being a low-income community is resulting in determinants to the community’s health.

References

Market Decisions Research and Hart Consulting, Inc. 2016 shared community health

needs assessment: Oxford county. State of Maine. 2015.

Hahn RA, Truman BI. Education improves public health and promotes health equity. International Journal of Health Services. 2015;45(4):657-678. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0020731415585986. Accessed January 27, 2018. doi: 10.1177/0020731415585986. (For some reason I can't double-space this one?)

Explanation / Answer

Social Determinants of Health constitute of economic and social components that determine and are responsible for an individuals emotional well being.

In simple terms, it is the conceptualization of the fact that the times we live in are strenuous and demand from various individuals tenuous environments which lead to health problems and diseases. It is determined by our access to the various social and economical commodities of the modern world, and how the hurdles to it lead to illnesses.

Lets get into upstream. Upstream determinants of Public health are those factors that are beyond an individuals control as they behave and interact with the individual at a macro level and not the micro level, which is comparatively controllable. The social determinants that come within the purview of the social component and have a direct impact on the health of an individual and are also considerably less capable of being mitigated by the concerned individual are factors such as: a person sexual orientation, their gender, race, class, or community status and/or monetary status within the social hierarchy.

The case aforementioned is definite a case of upstream SDoH. As they are beyond the control of the given individual that build up to make the community. As a consequence, we can see the affects of these factors on the physical as well as the emotional well being of the community members.  

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