DSJSW Week Four, Post Two (Synthesis & Connection)

    In order to understand health disparities among different populations, it is important to understand both the social and cultural determinants health. By understanding these determinants, it is possible to work to work towards achieving health equity. Health equity is achieved when there is equal access to available care for equal needs, equal use for equal need, and equal quality of care for all. Without these these factors lining up, health equity will not be a true reality. 

    Social determinants of health are conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, and is often shaped by the distribution of money, power, and resources. There is a direct downstream flow of social determinants. Policy, poverty, pollution and discrimination all effect overall income and education that a person receives  Education then directly impacts working conditions and neighborhood factors, which then decides health behaviors that lead to specific health outcomes. One of the best examples of health outcome disparities is that black men are 31% more likely to die from cancer, 60% more likely to suffer from a stroke, and die twice are often from diabetes related complications than non-Hispanic white men. This directly represents the health disparities that are present within certain racial groups.

    There are two main sections of social determinants - neighborhood and work conditions. Neighborhood conditions include air pollution, water contaminants, exposure to lead paint/mold/pests, access to healthy foods, safe places to exercise, and neighborhoods services such as transportation, trash and streetlights. Work conditions can include physical work-related injuries, sedentary jobs, high-noise, hazardous chemicals, mental health stressors, and access to work-provided benefits and insurance. A highly studied contributor to physical and mental health outcomes is educational attainments, as it directly effects health knowledge/literacy, work conditions, income and resources, and social status. 

    Racism can also directly impacts health outcome. Racial residential segregation, such as redlining, chronic stress due to experiences with racial bias, and perceived discrimination. This is seen most often in preganancy outcome disparities between black and white women, white white women with a college education or higher only experience four infants deaths per thousand births, black women with the same level of education experience ten infant deaths per thousand births. In fact, that number is even high than the infant mortality rates among white women without any high school education. It is believed that this is caused by lifelong accumulative damages done to the person by racism, stress, and their environment. The solution? Taking care of black women throughout their entire lives, not just when their preparing to have a child. We need systems that support women!!!