Question

What are health disparities? What are health inequalities? What is the difference if any? What social determinants were you aware of before doing this reading and which were new to your way of thinking about obesity? How will knowledge of these Social Determinants of Health change your future practice as a health professional? There are many perceptions about obesity that exist in society. One is that obesity stems from people making unhealthy choices and that if we just educate people about how to eat healthy and how to be active regularly this will solve the problem. Discuss, relative to the social determinants of health. When thinking about obesity prevention many people gravitate towards nutrition and physical activity education at the individual level of the SEM. We learned last week that interventions at the individual level of the SEM are expensive and often less effective than initiatives that target changes the higher levels of the SEM. If you could wave your magic wand, what three things would you change to close the socioeconomic and racial obesity gaps in the United States? In the article "Taking Action on the Social Determinants of Health in Clinical Practice: A Framework for Healthcare Professionals", the authors say "Training physicians, nurses and other allied health workers to address the social determinants of health is considered one of the key principles for promoting more equitable health outcomes for patients, families and communities. The article suggests that at the patient level, health professionals should "ask patients about social challenges in a sensitive and caring way". Please discuss if this is common protocol in your profession, if yes - give context (how, where, when, what) it is done, and if no - share why and in what practical situations you think it would be helpful if any.

Answer 1

Health disparities: Are the differences in the health status of different group of people. Eg. Some group have higher rates of certain diseases, suffering, deaths as compared to others. These groups may be based on race, ethnicity, gender, geography, income.

Health inequalities : Are the differences in the health status and the distribution of health resources between different population group. Eg Health inequalities arising from social conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work. Health inequalities are unfair and could be reduced by right mix of government policies.

difference between health disparity and health inequility:

Disparity is the quantity that separates a group from a reference point ie health whereas health inequality is not only the difference in the health status but also a difference in the distribution of resources between groups.

Social determinants of obesity:

1. Living conditions like work environment, education and agriculture and food production.
2. Working condition like unemployment, water and sanitation, health care services, housing.

Among the above obesity determinants : Education was new to the way of thinking if mine, bcoz a women with lower levels of education can be more likely to be obese than those with higher education. This means that obese people in lowersocioeconomic groups are getting heavier at a faster rate than people in higher socioeconomic group.