The Political Determinants Of Health
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The Political Determinants of Health
Author: Daniel E. Dawes
language: en
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Release Date: 2020-03-24
How do policy and politics influence the social conditions that generate health outcomes? Reduced life expectancy, worsening health outcomes, health inequity, and declining health care options—these are now realities for most Americans. However, in a country of more than 325 million people, addressing everyone's issues is challenging. How can we effect beneficial change for everyone so we all can thrive? What is the great equalizer? In this book, Daniel E. Dawes argues that political determinants of health create the social drivers—including poor environmental conditions, inadequate transportation, unsafe neighborhoods, and lack of healthy food options—that affect all other dynamics of health. By understanding these determinants, their origins, and their impact on the equitable distribution of opportunities and resources, we will be better equipped to develop and implement actionable solutions to close the health gap. Dawes draws on his firsthand experience helping to shape major federal policies, including the Affordable Care Act, to describe the history of efforts to address the political determinants that have resulted in health inequities. Taking us further upstream to the underlying source of the causes of inequities, Dawes examines the political decisions that lead to our social conditions, makes the social determinants of health more accessible, and provides a playbook for how we can address them effectively. A thought-provoking and evocative account that considers both the policies we think of as "health policy" and those that we don't, The Political Determinants of Health provides a novel, multidisciplinary framework for addressing the systemic barriers preventing the United States from becoming the healthiest nation in the world.
The Social Determinants of Health
Author: Kathryn Strother Ratcliff
language: en
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Release Date: 2017-08-31
This timely book takes seriously the idea of understanding how our social world – and not individual responsibility or the healthcare system – is the primary determinant of our health. Kathryn Strother Ratcliff puts into practice the "upstream" imagery from public health discourse, which locates the causes (and solutions) of health problems within the social environment. Each chapter explains how the policies, politics, and power behind corporate and governmental decisions and actions produce unhealthy circumstances of living – such as poverty, pollution, dangerous working conditions, and unhealthy modes of food production – and demonstrates that putting profit and politics over people is unhealthy and unsustainable. While the book examines how these unhealthy conditions of life generate significant class and ethnic health disparities, the focus is on everyone's health. Arguing that none of us should be placed in health-threatening situations that could have been prevented, Ratcliff's provocative analysis uses social justice and human rights lenses to guide the discussion "upstream," toward possible changes that should produce a healthier world for us all. Using data and ideas from many disciplines, the book provides a synthesis of invaluable information for activists and policymakers, as well as for professionals and students in sociology, public health, and other fields related to health.
A Framework for Educating Health Professionals to Address the Social Determinants of Health
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
language: en
Publisher: National Academies Press
Release Date: 2016-10-14
The World Health Organization defines the social determinants of health as "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, development agendas, cultural and social norms, social policies, and political systems. In an era of pronounced human migration, changing demographics, and growing financial gaps between rich and poor, a fundamental understanding of how the conditions and circumstances in which individuals and populations exist affect mental and physical health is imperative. Educating health professionals about the social determinants of health generates awareness among those professionals about the potential root causes of ill health and the importance of addressing them in and with communities, contributing to more effective strategies for improving health and health care for underserved individuals, communities, and populations. Recently, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop to develop a high-level framework for such health professional education. A Framework for Educating Health Professionals to Address the Social Determinants of Health also puts forth a conceptual model for the framework's use with the goal of helping stakeholder groups envision ways in which organizations, education, and communities can come together to address health inequalities.