NURS 6710 Week 7 Social Determinants of Health Essay

NURS 6710 Week 7 Social Determinants of Health Essay Assignment

On a beautiful spring morning two healthy babies were discharged from a university hospital in a large city. One baby traveled from the hospital to a household with parents who both have advanced degrees. Their home is a short distance to several food markets, parks, a highly rated public school and a well-funded local library with excellent early childhood programming. The rate of crime is low and the neighborhood actively fosters relationships with city politicians. The other baby went to a low-income household whose parents are high school graduates, the baby’s father is currently unemployed, and the mother has a low-wage position for an employer nearly one hour from their home. It’s difficult to find affordable healthy food options. They were hopeful given a community garden that was started nearby last year, but due to a lack of sustainable support, it was not maintained and is now barren. This family is considering moving closer to extended family for additional support once the father finds employment. What health status will these children exhibit in 5, 10, 15 years? To what extent is health determined by these different life circumstances?

This week, you will explore how social determinants influence health outcomes and the impact of health inequity.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

Analyze social determinants of health
Analyze aspects of population health

Discussion: What Determines Health?

Public health nurses contribute to the promotion of positive health outcomes by addressing social and physical environment needs within the communities they serve. International and national public health organizations and initiatives are unified in the premise that health is significantly influenced by factors beyond the individual level. These factors are termed the social determinants of health. According to the World Health Organization, the social determinants of health (SDH) are the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life. These forces and systems include economic policies and systems, development agendas, social norms, social policies, and political systems.

Healthy People 2020 highlights the importance of addressing the social determinants of health by including “Create social and physical environments that promote good health for all” as one of the four overarching goals for the decade. This emphasis is shared by the World Health Organization, whose Commission on Social Determinants of Health in 2008 published the report, Closing the Gap in a Generation: Health Equity Through Action on the Social Determinants of Health. The emphasis is also shared by other U.S. health initiatives such as the National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities and the National Prevention and Health Promotion Strategy.”

For this Discussion, you will choose a topic that is considered a social determinant of health and explain how it influences the health outcomes of a population.

To Prepare:

Review the video from the Worlds Apart series included in this week’s Learning Resources which highlights the experience of Alicia Mercado who is attempting to manage chronic disease within a challenging social and economic environment.
Choose a topic that you think is a social determinant of health and review academic literature and reliable online information on the topic you choose.

By Day 3

Post an explanation of why the issue you identified is a social determinant of health and explain how this issue contributes to health, both positively and negatively.

Read a selection of your colleagues’ responses.

By Day 6

Respond to a colleague who chose a different issue than the one you selected for your initial post to focus on and compare their issue analysis to yours. What similarities exist? What differences exist between the issues?

Assignment: Social Determinants of Health Reflective Paper

Inconsistencies in health outcomes are readily identifiable across populations. Once data is used to confirm disparities, what actions can a public health nurse, partnering with a given community, take? If information were enough, many long-standing health issues would be resolved. Consider what you have learned so far about public health and specifically the role of the public health nurse as you deepen your knowledge on the breadth of issues with which public health professionals engage.

For this Assignment, you will analyze two media pieces providing additional perspectives on the social determinants of health.

To Prepare:

Review the media for this week.
Reflect on the role of the public health nurse in the situations presented.

The Assignment:

After viewing the “Place Matters” and “Not Just a Paycheck” videos, complete a 2- to 3-page reflective essay in which you address the questions below, while integrating your personal reactions/responses to the media content:

In “Not Just a Paycheck,” two communities experiencing job loss after the closing of local manufacturing plants are discussed: Greenville, Michigan; and Vastervik, Sweden. Explain why you think the health outcomes of the citizens in Greenville and Vastervik are so different.

Based on the video, “Place Matters,” explain why zip code and street address are good predictors of population health?
What is the overarching theme illustrated by these two videos?

By Day 7

Submit your Assignment.

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