Social Economic Status Question 2022

STUDENT NAME_STUDENT NUMBER_ HSC210_Written Assessment
Please ensure you follow the instructions provided in Assessment THREE in the assessment
sections on learnline.
Question 1
What insights do post-modernist perspectives provide and what might this mean for health practice?
1 | P a g e
Post-modernist perspectives evolved during later half of the 20th century. It is characterized by
broad skepticism, relativism along with subjectivism; a basic suspicion of reason and an acute
sensitivity of the role towards the basic ideology in asserting and proper maintenance of the
economic and political power. The ideas of the post-modernist theory reflect the broader aspect of
the public discussion over the meaning and the role of science. It cast an epistemological challenge
to the overall knowledge of the expert and thus highlighting the fragility of the discursive practices.
The post-modernistic approach on healthcare also identifies the importance of the proper social
enquiry and also seeks moral, practical and other contextual information that help to empowers and
to offers choice (Fox, 2016). Holmes (2016) argued that post-modernistic approach in relation to the
healthcare states that the experience of illness is not linear with cause and effect equation. On
contrary, post-modernistic approach in healthcare is constructed over myriad of social, cultural,
economic and physical context. The outcomes of the illness are severe among the people, who
reside under poor-socio-economic status. The same theory is also application on the course of
disease development. People who reside under poor socio-economic status like the indigenous
population are more vulnerable towards disease development in comparison to the non-indigenous
population.

STUDENT NAME_STUDENT NUMBER_ HSC210_Written Assessment
Question 2
Despite increases in funding, explain why in Australia, Indigenous health outcomes are still an issue?
Provide examples to illustrate your argument.
Despite
2 | P a g e
Despite increase in the level of funding by the Australian Government Department of Health under
the policy of Closing the Gap, the health inequality among the Australian indigenous population still
persists. Indigenous population of Australia, often find it difficult to access the proper mainstream
primary healthcare services. Securing proper access to primary healthcare services, demand more
than just services, those are well-equipped and are easy to reach. The barriers in proper access to
the primary healthcare services include social discrimination and racism. Other issues related to
barriers in comprehensive primary healthcare access in spite of having a well-structured primary
healthcare include unemployment, and lower levels of education (Davy et al., 2016).
Cultural barriers might also lead to inequitable healthcare access among the indigenous population
of Australia leading to health-related inequality. The main cultural barriers include lack of trained
culturally competent nurse and aboriginal healthcare workforce. Other cultural barriers include
language barriers, making the indigenous population from culturally and linguistically diverse group,
difficult to access healthcare services (Li, 2017).
Thus the government of Australia must channelize the overall funding towards the introduction of
subsidised healthcare services, free consultation at community-based healthcare service in order to
increase the healthcare access and thus reducing health in-equality. Recruitment of the culturally
competent and aboriginal nurses will also help to increase the health access (Li, 2017; Davy et al.,
2016).

STUDENT NAME_STUDENT NUMBER_ HSC210_Written Assessment
Question 3
Psychiatry can be viewed as an institute of social control. Draw on sociological theories and
examples to discuss this statement.
3 | P a g e
Obasi et al. (2020) stated that the social determinants of health might negatively affect the health by
increasing the level of stress and depression and thereby hampering the psychological balance of
the body. The increased level of social stress arising out of unemployment, social isolation, financial
crisis and poor level of sanitation increase the level of stress and depression and this hamper the
Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis dysfunction and thereby hampering the psychological
health further. This can be explained through the Balance Theory. According to this theory, lack of
balance in maintaining the proper social life is increasing the level of negative thoughts and thereby
increasing severity of stress and subsequent development of depression, a significant psychological
problem (Thibaut, 2017). Equity Theory States that people feel comfortable and safe when they
receive their deserved appreciation and acknowledgement from the society. Lack of proper
acknowledgement coming from the society (proposition II), increases the level of frustration and
depression and thereby increasing the level of stress and depression. Persistent level of stress and
depression hampers the overall psychological balance of the body hampering the mental health
(Bowen, 2018).

STUDENT NAME_STUDENT NUMBER_ HSC210_Written Assessment
Question 4
What are the key benefits and limitations of e-health?
4 | P a g e
The e-health or electronic health records (EHRs) are regarded as the first step towards transformed
healthcare. Some of the notable advantages of e-Health include ensuring quick and instant access to
the patients' health records and easy documentation of patients’ data. Thus, helping to increase the
provision of care during emergency services and increasing the scope of care delivery to the patients
in the remote areas. e-health helps to reduce the work load of the doctors and thus helping to
increase their productivity (Ross et al., 2016). E-health also helps to reduce the overall cost of care
by reducing the financial expenses of paper-based documentation. The effective use of e-health
further reduces the chances of missing the clinical handover during the change of shift nurses. Some
of limitations of E-health include lack of proper regulation of the privacy and confidentiality of
patients' data and thus leading to data piracy. The lack of IT professionals in order to train the
nurses have increased the burden over the nurses in proper access to e-health and this contributing
the increased job-stress of the nurses (Ross et al., 2016). Yusif, Hafeez-Baig and Soar (2017) argued
that there is a lack of readiness among the nursing professional in order to take-up and implement
the e-health record and this leads to lack of comprehensive application of e-health and at the same
time increase in the level of job-stress among the nurses. Increase in the level of job-related stress
among the nurses reduces the nurse retention.

STUDENT NAME_STUDENT NUMBER_ HSC210_Written Assessment
Question 5
How does ideology and politics shape health outcomes? Draw on examples such as the PBS to
illustrate your points.
5 | P a g e
Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) by the government of Australia (2020) is a special program
that provides subsidised prescription drugs to the citizens of Australia. This subsidised medicine
scheme is also covers certain groups of foreign visitors who are covered under the Reciprocal Care
Agreement. The Australian Government, Department of Health (2020) states that the PBS provides
timely and reliable yet affordable access to certain life saving medicines to the Australian and thus
helping to improve the outcome of care. The main political ideology underlying the PBS includes
drawing the votes from the indigenous population or population residing in the rural areas by
blinding them with the lucrative scheme of PCS. The ideological thought process of PBS is to increase
the healthcare access of poor and aboriginal people, who refrain from accessing comprehensive
health service due to financial crisis. Alternatively it can be stated that the main ideology is
reduction in health in-equality (Australian Government Department of Health, 2020).

STUDENT NAME_STUDENT NUMBER_ HSC210_Written Assessment
Question 6
Certain mechanisms of functionalist theory are utilised today. Discuss what they are and highlight
the main assumptions and limitations of functionalism.
6 | P a g e
The functionalist theory sees society as a complex system whose parts work in unison in order to
promote stability and solidarity. Functionalistic approach visualises the entire scenario of the society
through macro-level orientation and broadly focuses over the social structures that shape up the
entire society. One of the prime assumptions of the functionalistic theory is, it views the entire
society in a cohesive format. This format signifies that society consists of various intermediate
groups that share identical norms. This assumption further signifies that higher level of integration
between intermediate groups of the society leading lead to more cohesive bonding. This level of
integration between the intermediate groups helps to reduce the health-related inequality.
However, the main limitation of the functionalistic theory is, it dis-regards the contribution of the
individual action and mainly uplifts the contribution of the society. Thus this theory fails to capture
the change occurring due to individualistic actions (Nord, 2018).

STUDENT NAME_STUDENT NUMBER_ HSC210_Written Assessment
Question 7
What is medical dominance and how does the medical profession achieve medical dominance in
Australia?
he medical profession over the content, terms and other medical condition (autonomy) and having
7 | P a g e
Medical dominance refers to the control of the medical profession over the content, terms and
other medical condition (autonomy) and having control over the other health division labour
(authority), health occupations and boarder aspect of healthcare. In other words, it can be stated
that the medical dominance mainly manifest the professional autonomy of the doctors through
their pivotal role in the economics in the healthcare services (Wranik & Haydt, 2018). Germov et al.
(2019) states that the Australian healthcare professionals were successful in retaining the concept of
the medical dominance despite neoliberism reforms in health policies. However, the medical
dominance is mainly executed by the doctors and not the nursing professional and thus indicating
the job and hierarchy related discrepancies. Medical dominance also helps the healthcare
professionals in delivering both formal and informal mode of care and thus increasing the scope of
practice and overall quality of care. At present the medical dominance in Australia is executed by the
patients. Patients’ autonomy is given prime importance under the approach of informed consent.
This informed consent is taken by the nursing professionals in written format and therapy planning
can progress only after attaining informed consent from the patient.

STUDENT NAME_STUDENT NUMBER_ HSC210_Written Assessment
Question 8
Explain the concept of discourse and explain how it is relevant to health and biomedicine in
Australia. Draw on examples to highlight you points.
Discourse refers to th pattern or manner of constituiting knowledge in association with the social
practices. Discourses are more than ways of thinking and producing a subjective meaning.
8 | P a g e
Discourse refers to the pattern or manner of constituting knowledge in association with the social
practices. Discourses are regarded as different ways of thinking and thus producing subjective
meaning of the entire thought process. Discourse can be defined as a system of thoughts and the
pattern of conducting things in reality. It is mainly composed of structures of knowledge that
influence the overall practice. The concept of discourse in the healthcare setup mainly involves
analysis of the socio-cultural and political context under designing of the care plan and intervention
is done. Discourse also helps in understanding the relationship between the language and ideologies
(Gong, 2016). Such that, understanding of the socio and cultural context of healthcare helps in
designing person-centred care plan. Moreover, understanding the relationship between the
language and the ideologies helps to uplift the healthcare principle of culturally competent care. The
concept of biomedicine mainly promotes the importance of personalised medicine in order to treat
any specific type of disease. The proper analysis of the socio-cultural context of a person towards
developing the personalised medicine helps in increasing the specificity biomedicine and thereby
helping to improve the overall outcome of care (Gong, 2016).

STUDENT NAME_STUDENT NUMBER_ HSC210_Written Assessment
Question 9
What is multi-culturalism and how might health needs differ for immigrants and refugees to people
who are born in Australia?
9 | P a g e
Multiculturalism is defined as a way in which the society deals with the culturally diverse people
both at the community level and at the cultural level. Multiculturalism mainly assumes that society
as a whole benefits from increase level of diversity among the mass by creating a harmonious co-
existence of different cultures (Abdel-Fattah et al., 2017). According to the Australian Institute of
Health and Welfare (AIHW) (2019) states that immigrants or the refuges who are moving to
Australia resides under the poor socio-economic status in comparison to the non-indigenous
population of Australia. Immigrants and refugees are mainly kept in the detention centre and thus
are deprived for basic resources. Under such deprivation they develop serious mental health
complications and thus creating different healthcare needs in comparison citizens of Australia. The
cultural health needs of the refugees and immigrants are different along with difference in the
language creates the differing health n needs further. However, reducing health-related equality
mong immigrants, refugees, indigenous and non-indigenous population of Australia will help to
decrease the high level of mortality and morbidity among refugee and non-indigenous populations
and thus helping to create a multi-culture balance in healthcare.

STUDENT NAME_STUDENT NUMBER_ HSC210_Written Assessment
Question 10
What are the social determinants of health and how do they help us understand the dynamics of
globalisation and inequity? Draw on examples in the Australian context to illustrate your key points.
10 | P a g e
The social determinants of health are the condition under which the people are born, grown and live,
study, work and they subsequently age and die. The common social determinants of health include
socio-economic status, education, physical environment and employment. The people who reside
under poor socio-economic determinants of health are more likely suffer from health-related
inequality (AIHW, 2016). For example, indigenous population of Australia who reside under the poor
socio-economic status are more likely to reside under unhygienic health condition, substance abuse,
lack of employment and proper food. This poor living condition decrease the adequate healthcare
access among the mass. This is the reason why the indigenous population are vulnerable to diabetes,
cancer, mental health complications and thereby increasing the rate of mortality and morbidity. This
high level of morbidity and mortality among any specific group of population hamper the overall
globalization (AIHW, 2016).
The impact of globalization, invited through the colonization of the European or British population in
India have uproot the indigenous people from their native land and forcing them to reside elsewhere.
This uprooting of the indigenous population has increased their health disparity further, making them
live outside their community and thereby hampering their spiritual and religious thought process and
thus hampering the overall mental health and creating health inequality further (Loos, 2017).

STUDENT NAME_STUDENT NUMBER_ HSC210_Written Assessment
References
11 | P a g e
Abdel-Fattah, R. (2017). Islamophobia and Everyday Multiculturalism in Australia. Routledge.
Australian Government Department of Health. (2020). The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Access
date: 22nd March 2020. Retrieved from:
http://www.pbs.gov.au/pbs/home;jsessionid=1t9fznziarqqz18wqi16g1wn8w
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). (2016). Australia's health 2016Access date: 22nd
March 2020. Retrieved from:
https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-health/australias-health-2016/contents/
determinants
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). (2019). Immigrants in Australia: a health profile.
Access date: 22nd March 2020. Retrieved from: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/social-
determinants/immigrants-in-australia-a-health-profile/contents/summary
Bowen, L. (2018). The Relationship Between Self-Esteem and Job Satisfaction: An Equity Theory
Perspective (Doctoral dissertation, Xavier University).
Davy, C., Harfield, S., McArthur, A., Munn, Z., & Brown, A. (2016). Access to primary health care
services for Indigenous peoples: a framework synthesis. International journal for equity in
health, 15(1), 163.
Fox, N. J. (2016). Health sociology from post-structuralism to the new materialisms. Health:, 20(1),
62-74.
Germov, J. (2019). Challenges to medical dominance. In Second opinion: An introduction to health
sociology (pp. 478-503). Oxford University Press, USA.
Gong, Q. (2016). Mediating Nature, Risk and Scientific Protection: Advertising Discourse of
Healthcare Products and Parental Reception. In Children’s Healthcare and Parental Media
Engagement in Urban China (pp. 109-139). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Holmes, C. A. (2016). Some implications of postmodernism for nursing theory, research, and
practice. Canadian Journal of Nursing Research Archive, 32(2).
Li, J. L. (2017). Cultural barriers lead to inequitable healthcare access for
Loos, N. (2017). Invasion and resistance: Aboriginal European relations on the North Queensland
frontier 1861-1897. Boolarong Press.
Nord, C. (2018). Translating as a purposeful activity: Functionalist approaches explained. Routledge.
Obasi, E. M., Chen, T. A., Cavanagh, L., Smith, B. K., Wilborn, K. A., McNeill, L. H., & Reitzel, L. R.
(2020). Depression, perceived social control, and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis