Socio-Economic Influences On Health Case Study

LO1

Understand the socio-economic influences on health.

Task 1

Introduction:
Using the case scenario provided to me, I will produce a report to demonstrate an understanding of the effect socio-economic influences on Christina and Paul’s health and their unborn child. I will then make an assessment of the importance of government resources such as reports/research on inequalities in health in relation to the case scenario. Finally, I will identify and discuss the reason and any possible barriers to Mary accessing health care.

1.1:
The effects of socio-economic influences on Mary’s health:

Definitions:
Health promotion is the procedure of enabling people to improve on their health.
Public health is prolonging life through the organized
efforts of society as well as promoting and protecting health and wellbeing of the public.
Social determinants of health refer to the social, economic and political situations that affect the health of individuals, communities and populations.
The effects of socio-economic influences on Christina’s health are evaluated as a combination of factors including, environment, citizenship status, discrimination and occupation. It is a way of looking at how Christina fits into society using economic and social measures that have been shown to impact her health and well-being.
Socio-economic status and health are closely related and can often have profound effects on Christina’s health due to differences in ability to access health care facilities as well as dietary and other lifestyle choices that are associated with both finances and education (Steinbach. R 2009).

Christina is a smoker which categorizes under health and lifestyle issues. Smoking damages health in the form of cancer or heart diseases and this will have a very bad impact on her unborn child. Even working 16 hours a week, would not be enough for Christina or her unborn child for the future as most of Christina’s income will go towards paying for her
cigarettes.

1.2:
The importance of government resources:

Definitions:
Government resources is resources which help you to gain understanding of what is right and wrong.

Black Report DHHS 1980 – The purpose of the Black report is to investigate the problem of inequalities in health as in the case of Mary.
It can analyze Mary’s lifestyles and health records. It was found that problems were linked with social and economic factors such as income, poor environment and poor education which is linked to Mary and these problems had little to do with the NHS.
The Acheson Report ‘Independent Inquiry in Health’ 1998 – The purpose of the Acheson Report is to investigate health inequalities in the UK. It was a very comprehensive survey of those in society described as disadvantaged. The root cause of inequalities in health was poverty.
Health and Lifestyle Survey (HALS) – Was carried out in 1991/2. HALS was designed as a unique attempt to describe the self-reported health, attitudes to health and beliefs about causes of disease in relation to measurements of health and lifestyle in adults of all ages and circumstances in living in their own homes in all parts of Great Britain.
Health Survey for England – compromises a series of annual surveys beginning in 1991. Health Survey for England is a statistical survey which is conducted annually in order to collect information concerning health and health-related behavior of people living in private households in England (Steinbach. R
2009).

1.3:
Barriers to accessing healthcare:

Definitions:
Barrier is when there is something stopping you from getting somewhere or something.
Healthcare is the organized provision of medical care to individuals or a community.

Christina was only 15 years old when she left school and ended up living with her family in a council flat. At a young age with no education means not being able to get a good job, so Christina ended up working part time in a supermarket. Being a smoker while pregnant is a bad influence on Christina because she is hardly making an income as most of her wages will go towards buying cigarettes. Accessing healthcare services in pregnancy will be a huge barrier for Christina as Healthcare services are very expensive. The main factors of not being able to have access to Healthcare services for Christina are not earning enough money to pay for Healthcare bills as Christina did not get the chance to educate and get a good job as she became pregnant. Depending on her parents would not be simple so she has to become independent.

The Approach to solving health inequalities for Christina would be the Individualist Approach. This approach is based on the belief that health inequalities are the result of how Christina chooses to lead her life. People of lower social class like Christina seem to smoke more and exercise less and have less healthy diets. There should be different types of health advertising campaigns for people like Christina where she can be largely responsible for monitoring her own health and the unborn child’s health.

References:

Steinbach. R, (2009), Inequalities in the distribution of health and health care and its access, including inequalities relating to social class, gender, culture and ethnicity, and their causes, Health Knowledge Education, CPD And Revalidation From Phast [Online] Accessed from http://www.healthknowledge.org.uk/public-health-textbook/medical-sociology-policy-economics/4c-equality-equity-policy/inequalities-distribution Accessed on 27 April 2015.