What Is The Social Determinants Of Health
CORE CONCEPTS OF HEALTH
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What might be the impact of socio economic status or gender or ethnicity (the social determinants of health) on the 'experience ' of health and illness, focus particularly on those of older people?
Disparities in health exist in various forms due to age, gender, socio economic status or other lifestyle factors and are often referred to as ‘the causes of the causes’. This short essay focuses on the subject of gender in relation to the older person, and highlights the issue of gender bias within health services.
The biological sex of a person can be described by their physiological characteristics and differences (WHO, 2013), however gender is defined as how we are perceived and expected to behave within society, for example being feminine, wearing heels and lipstick, or being masculine, having a hairy chest or big muscles (Cummings, 1995). There are many explanations that try to describe the shaping of an individual’s health, mind and longevity, such as biological, social and constrained choice models of theory (Kuhlmann & Annandale, 2012). …show more content…
Statistics report that women’s life expectancy figures are significantly higher than men’s worldwide, on average by ten years (ONS, 2012), but what is the reason behind this phenomenon? (Payne, 2006). It may be argued that there is a significant lack of knowledge in the area as research into gender and health has been biased, due to the fact that its studies have mainly been centred on
1
What might be the impact of socio economic status or gender or ethnicity (the social determinants of health) on the 'experience ' of health and illness, focus particularly on those of older people?
Disparities in health exist in various forms due to age, gender, socio economic status or other lifestyle factors and are often referred to as ‘the causes of the causes’. This short essay focuses on the subject of gender in relation to the older person, and highlights the issue of gender bias within health services.
The biological sex of a person can be described by their physiological characteristics and differences (WHO, 2013), however gender is defined as how we are perceived and expected to behave within society, for example being feminine, wearing heels and lipstick, or being masculine, having a hairy chest or big muscles (Cummings, 1995). There are many explanations that try to describe the shaping of an individual’s health, mind and longevity, such as biological, social and constrained choice models of theory (Kuhlmann & Annandale, 2012). …show more content…
Statistics report that women’s life expectancy figures are significantly higher than men’s worldwide, on average by ten years (ONS, 2012), but what is the reason behind this phenomenon? (Payne, 2006). It may be argued that there is a significant lack of knowledge in the area as research into gender and health has been biased, due to the fact that its studies have mainly been centred on