Social Determinants of Health and Heart Disease

Social determinants of
health

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Section 1: Social determinants of Heart disease..............................................................................3
Burden of heart disease..........................................................................................................3
How the social determinants of health can explain the burden of heart disease....................4
Section 2: An intervention to address social determinants of Heart disease...................................4
Propose a public health intervention to prevent heart disease................................................4
Explain what other sectors can be involved aside from the health sector..............................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Social determinants of health are considered to be the conditions, within which the people
are born, grow, work or live. There are some forces and system which shapes the conditions for
the life of the people that includes economic policies and systems, social norms, political
systems, development agendas etc. Cardiovascular or heart disease has been a matter of greater
concern for the Australian government due to which their entire health system has been under
pressure (Adler, Glymour and Fielding, 2016). Such diseases arise due to consumption of the
tobacco, lack of physical activities, a diet rich in fats and sugar etc. In this report the specific
population group which has been taken into consideration is the men from major cities in
Australia. The report includes the burden of heart disease on the people along with this an
intervention is proposed so that the disease can be prevented for the people living in the major
cities and are more prone to heart disease.
Section 1: Social determinants of Heart disease
Burden of heart disease
Heart diseases have greater burden on the entire health system of the country which arises
due consumption of the tobacco, lack of various physical exercises, obesity, diabetes,
hypertension etc. It can lead to various types of problem which can vary from individual to
individual such as heart stroke, coronary heart disease, heart failure, rheumatic heart disease and
congenital heart disease. On the basis of various report of the Institute of health and welfare of
Australia, the risk of heart disease among men are more than the women and this risk increase
with increase in the age. The specific population group targeted as per the report is men from
major cities which are more prone to such disease due to their lifestyle which includes
consumption of alcohol more often, smoking, etc. The burden of cardiovascular diseases on the
health department is around 14% in total burden of other disease as per the report of 2015 but it
has reduced than before which was around 15% and 18% in the year 2011 and 2003 respectively
(Roth, 2017). The chances of coronary heart disease and stroke are the leading disease in this
category which is found more in males than females. Due to more burden of this disease on the
Australian health system around 8.9% of the total expenditure on the health and welfare is
contribute to the cardiovascular diseases (What are cardiovascular diseases? 2015).