Social Determinants of Health
A host of factors affect your health status at the individual or community level. Whether you are healthy or not is primarily determined by your biology, genetic predispositions, and behavior. To a large extent, your social and physical conditions along with existing medical care and health policy have considerable impact on your health and ultimately disease risk or occurrence. The social and physical conditions are the social determinants—the places you are born, grow up, live, learn, play, and work and your age— that affect a wide range of health and health outcomes including quality of life.
Understanding and addressing multiple aspects of social determinants are essential for the development of epidemiological theories. These theories encourage epidemiologists to think critically and systematically about integral connections between social determinants and disease occurrence. From these theories epidemiologists also gain insight, responsibility, and accountability to translate the vision of a healthier society to a reality.
For this Discussion, review the week’s Learning Resources and consider different theories of social determinant of health and their impact on epidemiology. Then select a peer-reviewed article from the Walden Library that focuses on a specific theory of social determinants of health.
With these thoughts in mind:
Post an explanation of the theory the article used and how the theory was applied to the field of epidemiology. Explain how you might integrate the theory into your dissertation research and the importance of framing your research within a theory or model. Provide a rationale using scholarly resources.
Article and reference:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3167771/
Ward, P. R., Meyer, S. B., Verity, F., Gill, T. K., & Luong, T. C. (2011). Complex problems require complex solutions: the utility of social quality theory for addressing the Social Determinants of Health. BMC Public Health, 11, 630. http://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-11-630
Answer Preview
The study in the research paper applied the use of the social quality theory. The theory mainly deals with the social well-being of the society as a whole which is determined by the participation of individuals in ensuring that their well-being and their interests are secured….
(796 Words)