Social Factors Affecting The Healthcare System

A good and functioning healthcare system comprises of a group of people or institutions that come together to deliver health-related services to a community or population. These services are expected to be readily available at any point in time. There are many variables that affect the type of health care that is available to the public, some of which are social factors like income, ethnicity, education, transportation, insurance, housing, and food access, etc. just to name a few. The social factor that has affected the healthcare system tremendously is income. According to the census bureau, the average American family makes around $51,000 a year. Almost one household out of every four makes less than $25,000 a year, which
can be a big issue when it comes to accessing health care. Patients at times, have a hard time with affording insurance, copays, and medications. These people have limited access to healthy food and quality housing. People with limited income have to work longer hours to afford the very basic things in life, so the question becomes, can these people even afford to take time off from work to see a doctor? Do their employers provide paid time off or a good health insurance package? People with lower income tend to have many health conditions due to all the factors that make them unable to live a healthy lifestyle. In this population, one of the biggest challenges is prioritizing and putting their health first and this shortcoming makes it difficult for doctors to provide quality health care to these populations. Individuals that fall into this group also undertake an extreme amount of stress from being in poverty, which may lead them to develop certain mental health issues as well as a certain stress-related illness like high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol. When left unidentified, these can lead to devastating health outcomes such as stroke, and heart attack, that can be fatal. Health care providers can really impact change in this group by just having a sense of empathy and putting themselves in their patient’s circumstances. This will allow them to look at the overall picture and identify what resources are available to these individuals. Clinicians really have to listen to their patients and see what will be the best treatment for them. A good example would be giving a patient a generic prescription rather than a brand name medication. Another way that clinicians can positively impact change in healthcare is by putting their resources together and getting government funding, this will allow them to pay attention to some of their patient's personal needs like providing free food, clothing, and general health check-ups through food trucks, donations, and free health clinics. On a wider scale, health care ethic committees need to look into the needs of the community when developing healthcare resources and match the resources available to the communities that need them most. Another social factor that affects the healthcare system is education.
Low education leads to low health care literacy. This causes the inability of patients to adequately research health care resources. Low education also leads to less knowledge about the proper ways to be healthy. Some researchers say that people with a college degree are more likely to be particular about their general health by watching what they eat, going to the gym regularly, and keep away from negative lifestyle behaviors such as smoking and unsafe sex practices. When people are not educated it can make diagnosing harder for physicians, it can lead to miscommunication between patients and doctor, a patient might overdoes on medication because they could not read or understand a medication instructions, healthcare professionals might have difficulties delivery care to non-English speaking patients. By hiring a multi-cultural staff that can be of services to a diverse community, can be one major step to eliminating communication issue between patients and health care professionals. Health care institution can be an advocate for good health through community health care literacy education, spread the importance of education, and provide educational resources and educational scholarship to the community. Healthcare institution can educate their staff on how to communicate medical terms and diagnoses as simple as possible for easier understanding to their
patients.

Another social factor that has a major impact on the healthcare delivery system is geographical location.
Geographical location of patients can create barriers to a healthcare access and delivery system. When a patient resides in a certain geographical location many factors can affect the patient's ability to achieve sound health. For residences of a certain geographical area to achieve sound health, the importance of quality housing and living conditions has to be encouraged. Poor living conditions such insect and roach infested housing, lead-based housing, the presence of mold and poor ventilated housing can lead to many health risks such as pneumonia, asthma and many other respiratory diseases. Aside from poor living conditions, there are some environmental factor such as, temperature, pollutants, and altitude in a certain geographical area that influences health and the healthcare delivery
system. A patient's physical distance to a health care facility can have a negative impact on healthcare delivery system, a patient who lives in a geographical area without a healthcare facility might not have access to child immunization, preventive care, and health literacy. The physical location of a healthcare facility can be discouraging to patients due to other factors that can be linked to patient’s physical location. For an example a patient who does not have access to a reliable transportation might be not able to visit a clinic that is outside of their current geographical area, which can lead to spread of diseases and increased illness and health risk in the community. Health care providers and health ethic committee can impact changes for more equitable health care system through community outreach, providing access to healthcare through a distribution of health care facilities in certain geographical areas to minimize a physical distance between patients and healthcare providers while encouraging clinic visits. Healthcare providers and health ethic committee can play a major role in geographical environmental pollution policies, conducting analysis and research studies on a geographical area and its residences can help determine the impact of pollution on patients in a certain geographical area. Conducting these studies can help implement policies to help minimize pollution by factories, industries and the general public. In certain geographical area, heath care providers and ethic committees can be an advocate for positive change in the community through response to social justices and pay critical attention to the social determinants of health in the community.

Social factors have a huge impact on the healthcare system, social factors can lead to wrong diagnoses of patients, continues spread of disease, poor community health, increase healthcare cost and decreased patient/provider relationship. Healthcare institutions and health ethic committee members should pay attention to how social factors affect the community. Healthcare institutions can impact changes in the community by providing accessible healthcare system to the community, making sure that the poor and the uninsured receive equal healthcare service regardless of their social status. The healthcare providers can increase patient/provider relationship by understanding the social factors that can affect patient's life. Healthcare institutions and health ethic committee members can be an advocate for changes in the community through healthcare literacy education, connecting patients to the right resources, promoting the importance of education through educational scholarship and resources. Healthcare institutions can lower health care cost through community research, providing community needs and helping implement political policies that can be beneficial to the community. Finding solutions and resources to a patient’s social issues should be the first step to an effective healthcare delivery system.