Social Determinants of Health DQ
Writing
******** please respond with a paragraph to discussion question below, add citation and references 🙂 *****
Social determinants of health are conditions in the social environment in which people are born, live, learn, work, and play that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks. (Rockville, Maryland: 2000). The social determinants of health include health and healthcare, social and community context, education, economic stability, neighborhood, and built environment. Those determinants influence people’s health in a positive or a negative way. Example, low-income level, and low education level have been linked with poor health. Low-income level implies earning less than twice the federal poverty level. People with low-income level find harder to gather for health needs of themselves and their family. As a result, it has a negative impact because they are exposed to the dangers of diseases. Low literacy level denies them with an opportunity to understand variables relating to preventive and curative measures to take. It exposes the family to the risk of diseases that could have been prevented if the family members were educated (Adler et al., 2016).
Communicable disease chain model explains the spread of a communicable disease from one host (or person) to another. Chain of infection has different components: the infectious agent, reservoir, portal of exit, mode of transmission, portal of entry, and susceptible host. The basic idea represented in the chain of infection is that individuals can break the chain (reduce the risk) at any point. Break the chain can be done in different ways. Examples of the measures that nurses can implement in order to break the link within the communicable disease chain are hand washing, immunizations, condoms, hair nets, insect repellents, isolation, proper preparation of foods, proper use of PPE, patient education among others.
References:
Adler, N. E., Cutler, D. M., Jonathan, J. E., Galea, S., Glymour, M., Koh, H. K., & Satcher, D. (2016). Addressing social determinants of health and health disparities. Vital Directions for Health and Health Care Initiative: National Academy of Medicine Perspectives.
Artiga, S., & Hinton, E. (2018). Beyond health care: the role of social determinants in promoting health and health equity. Health, 2010.
Green, Sue Z. (2018). Community & public health: The future of health care. Retrieved from https://lc.gcumedia.com/nrs427vn/community-and-pub…
CDC. (2018). Handwashing: Clean Hands Save Lives. Retrieved from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/
