Addressing Healthcare Disparities through Nursing Initiatives

This assignment explores the vital role of nurses in addressing health disparities by improving service quality, implementing workshops and campaigns, utilizing technology, and ensuring efficient training. The goal is to elevate overall service quality and thereby enhance societal well-being.

Nursing: Health and Health
Care in Australia

TABLE OF CONTENTS
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
ASSESSMENET 2 .........................................................................................................................3
1) The characteristics of individuals in case study.................................................................3
2) Social determinants of health that are evident in the case study........................................3
3) Social determinants and the best way(s) to address this issue in order to have an impact on
the whole of population..........................................................................................................4
4) Roles that health professionals should play in addressing the issue..................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES: ..............................................................................................................................6

MAIN BODY
ASSESSMENET 2
1) The characteristics of individuals in case study
In context to case study these people lived in a small village that was known as coastal
mining town. They were having poor financial status due to low income. This restricted them to
improve their life style. Also, the town was not so developed and so, it only had few industries or
businesses. There was no source of employment (Daly, Speedy, and Jackson, 2017). This made
them to go far away from village to city in order to search for job. Carla was 54 years old
women. She was living with her aunt. After getting married early, her husband left. But he
financially helped her. He was working as a casual labour in a factory. After getting a head
injury, he did not get proper treatment due to financial crisis. Carla helped her husband in this
situation. Carla worked in retail store on low wages. This got worse as her children grew up.
After mine was closed, business started getting moved into cities. This created more
unemployment and many people started leaving the town (Jeffreys, 2015).
Due to poor education of Carla, her children also did not do well enough in studies. This
shows lack of education in her family. Her son somehow finished 12 grade. Her daughter was
living with her boyfriend in a small flat. She wants her mother to move to city. They are still
struggling to meet their needs. Her daughter is pregnant and has developed gestational diabetes.
She feels tired all the time. Carla wants to help her daughter but the cost of travelling to city is
very high and she cannot afford it. This situation forced her to save money just to visit the city.
Thus, this shows that these individuals belong to very low class and backward category.
They are not having enough resources to fulfil their needs. Besides this, due to lack of education,
they were not aware about government benefits (Stanhope, and Lancaster, 2015).
2) Social determinants of health that are evident in the case study
Social determinants' of health are related to economic and social conditions in which an
individual is living. It defines their social status and income level. Also, it helps in identifying
their health status. These determinants divide population on the basis of their health status and
social condition. An individual who lives is having a high income and better social environment
will be having a good health status. This is because; they are having resources to maintain their

health status. But on the other hand is individual s having low income and lived in poor social
conditions will be having poor health status. It is because; they are not having sufficient
resources to fulfil their needs or maintain health (Holland, 2017)
Impact on health and well-being- Due to poor living conditions and low income, people
do not have enough resources to get proper treatment. This affects their mental and physical
health. Besides this, health status is determined by how well individual’s health is. Moreover, a
well maintained health will define the overall social status. A society health status depends upon
how well educated they are and their income level.
In context to case study, the social determinants in this are poor social conditions and low
income. Due to this, Carla was not able to study (Martin, 2016). This also affected her children
as they were also not well educated. Moreover, Carla son and daughter were not properly
educated as she was not able to afford this. It reflects their financial status. Besides this, her
daughter was suffering from gestational diabetes. Due to this, she felt tired all the time. It also
affected his mental health as they were not having enough resources to fulfil their needs. For
example- Carla husband suffered form head injury and did not get proper treatment due to lack
of income.
3) Social determinants and the best way(s) to address this issue in order to have an impact on the
whole of population
Social determinant is based on several factors such as income distribution, education,
unemployment, etc. (Hayes, Gregorevic, and Lim, 2016). These all reflect on the well-being of
people in society. It helps in measuring their health status. The social determinant that reflects
case study is lack of education. If people are well educated then they know how to get the basic
health facilities. This helps them to maintain the health. Due to lack of education, people will not
have basic knowledge of health services. This will keep them away from getting those services.
Thus, the entire societal status will be affected by this. The strategies that can be followed to
improve their education level are as follows:-
 First of all, government must develop proper infrastructure in town to provide free
education to poor people. This will improve the literacy level. Also, people will be
having knowledge about what health services are available.
 Second can be by identifying their income level so that social determinant can be
addressed. It will help in understanding their needs and what changes people want. Also,

by this, their income sources can be identified (Halter, 2017). It will help in measuring
the present conditions.
Strategies describes related are upstream. It is because by knowing economic conditions
individual life style can be analysed. With this education level, health status can be determined.
These strategies' are likely to work because it will help in analysing the overall economic
condition. By this, needs are identified so that resources are provided to fulfil them (Oakman,
Macdonald, and Wells, 2014).
4) Roles that health professionals should play in addressing the issue
Health professionals play a vital role in providing the basic health services to people.
They ensure that all people should get these services so that they will live a healthy life. It is their
role to identify areas where health status of people is very low. After that, they should organise
campaigns and workshops in those areas. This will allow people to get those facilities free of
cost. Besides this, professionals should improve service quality to enhance the living standard of
people. It will be useful in getting high quality services at low cost. They can use technology to
improve the service quality. Along with this, trainees must be provided with efficient training so
that they will perform their roles and responsibilities in an effective way (Buchan, Duffield, and
Jordan, 2015). It will help in rising the overall quality of services and thus, improving health of
people.
CONCLUSION
This case study reflects on how social determinants are determined with the help of
income level and health status. Social determinants' of health are related to economic and social
conditions in which an individual is living. It helps in measuring the overall status of society.
Social determinant is based on several factors such as income distribution, education,
unemployment, etc. All these reflect the well-being of people in society. Overall, it can be
concluded that health professionals play a vital role in providing the basic health services to
people.

REFERENCES:
Books and Journals
Buchan, J., Duffield, C. and Jordan, A., 2015. ‘Solving’nursing shortages: do we need a New
Agenda?. Journal of nursing management.23(5). pp.543-545.
Daly, J., Speedy, S. and Jackson, D., 2017. Contexts of nursing: An introduction. Elsevier Health
Sciences.
Halter, M.J., 2017. Varcarolis' Foundations of Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing-E-Book: A
Clinical Approach. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Holland, K., 2017. Cultural awareness in nursing and health care: an introductory text. CRC
Press.
Jeffreys, M.R., 2015. Teaching cultural competence in nursing and health care: Inquiry, action,
and innovation. Springer Publishing Company.
Martin, R.S., Hayes, B., Gregorevic, K. and Lim, W.K., 2016. The effects of advance care
planning interventions on nursing home residents: a systematic review. Journal of the
American Medical Directors Association.17(4). pp.284-293.
Oakman, J., Macdonald, W. and Wells, Y., 2014. Developing a comprehensive approach to risk
management of musculoskeletal disorders in non-nursing health care sector
employees. Applied ergonomics.45(6). pp.1634-1640.
Stanhope, M. and Lancaster, J., 2015. Public Health Nursing-E-Book: Population-Centered
Health Care in the Community. Elsevier Health Sciences.