Primary Health Care Reviews

Primary Health Care Review
University
Assessment 1
Name
Date

Part 1
Socio-political and cultural determinants impacts on health
Health is determined by various key factors such as age, behaviors, genetic, health care
access and external environments such as housing and water. These health factors play a
fundamental role in the overall health overview of an individual. Major social factors
influencing health state to entail education, income, housing, and access to health care.
Education levels affect health status. It offers an avenue for making good decisions, persons
with high education tend to have a healthier life (Mactaggart, et al., 2018). Income levels cut
across individuals to communities. Food purchasing power on quality foods and accessing
clean and healthier services play a fundamental role. Housing is a key social factor that
impacts the health state of the individual to the community level. Access to health care plays
a fundamental role in determining the state of health. Having access to health care indicate,
seeking health care services at all times when faced with health-related challenges. Socio-
political processes such as elections, lobbying, law-making are some of the examples of how
political issues affect health output. Political aspects such as taxation social security and
public services have an impact on the community, individual and even family set up avenues
(Williams, 2017). These factors combined to play a key role in influencing how health care is
attained at individual, family and organization levels.
Socio-political and cultural determinants of health and ethnic groups in New
Zealand
In improving the health of the population there is a need for reducing inequalities and
identifying important factors that promote good health sate. The underlying social-cultural
factors entail income, employment, and education level. Income is one of the key modifiable
determinants of health and overall wellbeing. In New Zealand, there has been a decline of
income per household in the previous decade with Maori and pacific populations being hard
hit. The link and relation between ill health and poverty are still fundamental (Zambas &
Wright, 2016). Employment remains to be a fundamental aspect of determining the adequacy
of the individual in the community. It facilitates social status and improves overall self-
esteem. Unemployment is detrimental to New Zealand. The Maori, Pacific, and young adults
have increased levels of unemployment compared to the general population. Education plays
a fundamental role in determining the social-cultural aspects of a population. Low education
levels are linked to poor health status. The majority of the Maori and Pacifica populations

continue to face low levels of education, while an estimate of 20% of New Zealand’s adults
does not possess any form of education (Ryks, Simmonds & Whitehead, 2019).
The cultural determinants among the indigenous groups of New Zealand entail a mix of
aspects. Among the Maori, they practised frequent visitation to marae/sacred gathering places
which is associated with increased state of physical health linked to quality of life. Further,
mental health issues were linked to aspects of discrimination. This demonstrates that higher
language and cultural association is linked to positive health outcomes (Dyall et al., 2014).
Among the Pacifica region population, existence of traditional beliefs on health care
outcomes affects the overall access to health. They believe health to occur as a result of the
imbalance between the three anchors of the lokahi triangle-mental, physical and spiritual.
They belief healing occurs in all three aspects, further the belief of illness based on historical
trauma s affecting access of health care services (Cavney & Friedman, 2018). Among the
Asian communities they belief illness occurrence as punishment from God, discussion on
aspects such as screening is viewed as a troublesome avenue. Further, they believe that faith
in God is key in disease prevention. Further they are fearful of the health care services as they
view in terms of inflicting pain on them(Zhao, Esposito & Wang, 2010).
Outcomes of health determinants on health outcomes of Aotearoa/New Zeeland
Health determinants among the indigenous communities in New Zealand play a
fundamental role in the overall health state. Findings and reviews have shown that social,
cultural and economic factors continue to be major health determinants among this
population. Current trends of health among these communities play a fundamental role in
health, these underlying socio-cultural factors. Income and social status are linked to better
health outcomes, a greater gap between the rich and poor communities in New Zealand play a
fundamental role in creating the health differences and likely to decrease the overall health
quality state. The non-Maori populations are advantaged more in the context of the school
environment, employment, and income and housing levels. It is estimated that about 27% of
Aotearoa/New Zealand people live in low-income households, a high proportion of the
Pacific and Maori populations are entangled in high economic deprivation areas (Came,
O’Sullivan, & McCreanor, 2020).

Implications of health determinants
This implication in terms of health is linked to increased rates of diseases such as heart
diseases and diabetes which have significantly greater mortality trends for the Pacific
population among the general population. social aspects such as tobacco smoking contribute
significantly to increased to disability and negative outcomes in Aotearoa/New Zealand,
despite, there is poor and no independent institutions which are capable of implementing
policies to curb tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy foods leading to increased occurrence of
diseases and poor health outcomes (LLee et al., 2018).
Part 2
Principles of primary health care concerning Aotearoa/New Zealand
Equity
Globally people experience various social aspects that lead to avoidable health
differences. In New Zealand, Pacific and Maori population, they tend to experience a lower
level of socioeconomic status leading to increasing rates of chronic illness causing higher
mortality, morbidity and inequitable health care outputs. Adequate and reliable health system
plays a fundamental role in ensuring the fair distribution of health care services. Health care
systems play a fundamental role in determining and influencing other social determinants of
health. It plays a fundamental role in promoting equity of health. In pursuit of health, equity
calls for striving for equal opportunities cutting across all social groups with the key focus of
improving the health condition among those groups having fewer opportunities (Te Karu, L.,
Bryant, L., Harwood, M., & Arroll, 2018).
New Zealand health care has undergone a tremendous restructuring process geared
toward primary health care access. Implementation of population health approaches has been
undertaken to reduce the health gap. Chronic illness continues to be the greatest cause of
morbidity and mortality in the New Zealand health care system however despite these
attempts, an increasing heath gap is still being observed between the Maori and non-Maori
populations. The Pacific, Maori and those in lower socioeconomic status continue to
experience high levels of chronic disease and poor health outcomes, signifying poor equity
process (Sheridan et al., 2011).