Public Health and Social Determinants

This assignment explores the relationship between public health and social determinants, highlighting the impact of economic, environmental, and social factors on human health. It includes references to relevant books and journals, such as 'Risk Communication and Public Health' and 'The Social Determinants of Health', as well as online resources like the World Health Organization's 'Health Worker Role in Providing Safe Abortion Care'. The assignment emphasizes the importance of addressing these determinants to improve public health outcomes.

The Role of Public Health in
Health and Social Care

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1.1...........................................................................................................................................1
1.2 ..........................................................................................................................................2
1.3 Effectiveness of strategies and approaches for controlling disease..................................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
2.1 Current approaches and priorities for illness and disease................................................4
2.2 Prevalence of disease........................................................................................................6
2.3 Impact of current lifestyle................................................................................................7
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................8
3.1...........................................................................................................................................8
3.2 Effectiveness of policies, systems and strategies.............................................................8
3.3 Improvement of well-being and health of people ............................................................9
3.4 Implementation of activities for improving social and health care................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
.......................................................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Public health is defined as the art and science of preventing disease, sponsoring safety
and health and managing health with hard work and educated selections of private, community,
organisations, individual, culture and government. These are such kind of agencies which control
health and social work. Health is considered as one of the main factor in a country. Social care
and public health is the kind of areas in which there is more concern of government (Bennett,
2010). Due to several factors, many health hazards are there reported all around the world. All
these factors must be considered seriously hence procedures & policies of health management
should be updated in order to control issues. This report is based on the role of public health in
health and social care. In this essay different strategies and approaches for measuring and
controlling disease, implications of disease and illness in communities and factors affecting
public health will be discussed.
TASK 1
1.1.
According to WHO (2015), National Health Service (NHS) is the body which is
responsible for implementing activities related to health. The chief governor is state secretary for
health. He takes responsibility of all the activities which are related to health. All the governing
bodies and other department comes under secretary. Secretary provides commands and
guidelines to different authorities regarding new researches, disease related management
processes and policies and drugs management.
There are various agencies which are operating for the identification of disease and health
in society, some operate internationally and some operate nationally. Local authorities have a
role of providing health related facilities in that area. From the outbreak of local infectious
infection, health officials of local communities are the main responders of health who make
functions with other care providers.
It has been analysed that these role comprises of health measure discovery, nursing and
resounding epidemic investigation for detecting, conducting test in laboratory, handling and
separating sick people etc. The agencies also safeguard and encourage health through public
health act, novelty, company and control. In order to achieve this they are averting protected
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sickness and injuries, replying to infectious illness and community health disasters and are
attentive for encouraging health (Betancourt and et.al., 2016).
WHO, tries their best to generate system for worldwide investigation that includes
making association of nationwide, universal, public health England, provincial and local research
laboratories network as well as health centres in investigation regarding disease network.
Different academies and government also play major role in infectious illness like UK
Community Health Laboratory Service etc.
1.2
Epidemiology is defined as the study of determinants and distribution of health related
events and states and this study's application is used for controlling health problems and other
disease. It makes collection of data and analyse in order to monitor disease, make investigation
of outbreak which leads to prevent or control community health problem and epidemics. It also
evaluate health programs in order to identify various problems related to health. Blas and Kurup
(2010), stated that epidemiology is the learning of causes and delivery related to health actions
and conditions and learning presentation used to control problem and illness. Various approaches
are used for transmitting epidemiological research that includes use of investigative lessons for
studying causes, expressive studies and observations are adopted for studying spreading of
disease. Epidemiology disease occurs due to incidents like defenceless groups, ecological
distribution and occurrence rates.
Infectious disease like HIV is spreading widely in UK. Statistical data has been found out
related with it, which is described as follows:
 101,200 people having HIV
 0.16% adult HIV presence
 6,095 new infections of HIV
 594 AIDS related deaths
 96% adults who are on antiretroviral treatment.
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Non-infectious disease like type 2 diabetics is the kind of most dangerous non-infected
disease. Some of the causal factor of this disease are genes, stress, obesity etc. When an
individual gets diabetic then it causes many other problems like heart attacks, high blood
pressure and several other complications may occur. Approx 700 people in a day are found to be
diabetes, which is equal to a single person in every two minutes (Braveman, Egerter and
Williams, 2011). Since the year 1996, number of people who are found to be diabetic in UK are
more than double from 1.4 million to 3.5 million. In the year 2015, people who are diabetic in
adult population in UK are as follows:
Country Number of people
England
Scotland
Northern Ireland
Wales
2,913,538
271,312
84,836
183,348
Table 1: Number of people who are diabetic
HIV is spread due various kinds of reasons such as lesbian or men having sex with the men of
which one of them was infected. Heterosexual habits can be dangerous in this regard if any of
them is infected. Some other ways of getting infected are blood transfusion from mother to baby,
unprotected sex or using infected syringe.
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Source 1: HIV status of UK, 2017

1.3 Effectiveness of strategies and approaches for controlling disease
Several new strategies and developments has been planned by Health research
organisations in order to prevent and reduce tuberculosis from UK. There are various strategies
which are enforced and they are defined as the key areas: Development of new vaccine: Vaccine of TB that is used today was discovered in 1921.
It helps in protecting 40,000 children in a year. With increasing rate of HIV and because
of its spreading speed there is a need of research regarding new vaccines. Development of effective drugs: Drugs which are being used currently was discovered
around 40 years ago. Normally it is needed for the treatment of many moths. Patients
who are not able to take proper course of drug may have drug resistance TB (Drummond
and et.al., 2015). Development of better diagnosis: Present method which is used for diagnosis i.e. sputum
smear microscopy is a method which is 100 year old used for making identification of a
patient and is also very time consuming. There is a need to make research of new method
for the identification of TB patient.
 Introduction of innovation for control of TB: There is a requirement to make finding of
new methods for controlling TB as there is a increase in TB rate in UK as well as in HIV
patients.
In order to cure and prevent diabetics, various implementations are being planned. Some
steps are described below so as to prevent diabetes in UK:
 Awareness regarding the risk of diabetics
 Advice and support to people so as to minimise diabetes risk
 Education to people who are having diabetes in order to minimise complication (Ford
and Capewell, 2011).
 Education to people for maintaining glucose level of blood.
TASK 2
2.1 Current approaches and priorities for illness and disease
One of the main disease which have caused many problem is HIV. It is a type of
infectious disease which can be infected to another person in 3 ways, which can defined as
follows:
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 Mother to child transmission
 Transmission which take place by blood
 Sexual transmission
In respect to prevention of these,various priorities are there which needs to be done.
Some methods are spelled out which helps in reducing risk.
 Counselling
 Use of condom
 HIV testing
 Sex education
 Family planning
There is no appropriate medication which was found for avoiding HIV. Best practice
which can be taken to avoid such disease is by conducting awareness campaign and training
programs (Frieden, 2010). Education must be provided to school children regarding various
disease and methods of prevention. All VOG sergeants must do blood check-ups of pregnant
mothers and should make sure that child is not getting affected by it.
There are also some other priorities and approaches used for providing services in
communities. Disease prevention: It is a part of medication which give attention to serve people for
avoiding infectious disease in coordination with groups and entities. Treatment: For any disease, there should be proper treatment which must be given to
individual regarding the disease. These may include antiretroviral treatments and
medicine course which are used for recovering and spreading value of lifetime. The
treatment of HIV is expensive. Palliative care: It has been analysed that palliative care is different from heath care
which concentrates on inhibiting and releasing patient's grief (Goldberg and McGee,
2011). Palliative medicine are used for patients who are suffering from ailment stages
and with people who are suffering from treatable infections and individuals who are
counting days of death.
 Remedial care: It is basically a non-residential domestic centre regarding cure,
expansion and maintenance of physical incapabilities of grown ups and teenagers.
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These diseases are overburden on the financial status and morality rate of the country. Most
number of deaths in a country is occurred due to habits of eating tobacco, high BP, physical
inactivity etc. Cost of treatment and facilities that are available for these patients is becoming
costlier.
Non-infectious disease like breast cancer is a type of cancer which is developed through
breast tissues. Its sign may include change in shape of breast, lump in breast, fluid coming from
it, red patch on skin. Risk factors which develops breast cancer may be due to lack of physical
exercise, obesity, drinking alcohol, early age mensuration etc.It can be prevented with the help of
several ways: Life-style: Risk of breast cancer can be reduced in women by drinking less alcohol,
maintaining weight, breastfeeding their children and by getting physically active. There is
no specific age when a women gets diagnosed with such disease but generally women
over age of 40 years are more prone to such diseases. Pre-emptive surgery: In this both breast got removed before cancer is diagnosed or if
there in any suspicious lump. This theory will help in preventing breast cancer.
 Medications: The selective estrogen modulator will help in reducing the risk which is
related with breast cancer but may increase risk of endometrial and thromboembolism
cancer.
2.2 Prevalence of disease
Marmot and Bell (2012), says that prevalence is described as the amount of old
circumstances and novel of incidences and illness of a event through particular period. In the
case of HIV, prevalence is taken into consideration by dividing health meter's sum of occurrence
through the specific time gap with the help of proportion of population indicator. To assist and
give social service to a person in the case of HIV, prevalence is very significant as it supports in
facility requirement setting and planning. It is an appropriate degree than occurrence while
measuring disease effect in public and also helps in evaluating successive desires.
Amount of HIV patients and people who receive medical tests does not make count of
exact people who get suffered from similar disease. At the same time, there are several people
who are not aware regarding the infection which they already had. Therefore, it is very necessary
to make calculation of exact number of people by using model which helps to get ready for
medication and also assist in understanding full society effect and the people who are having
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HIV may get proper treatment. In many cases, public are unaware of the actual effect of disease
which they are having. It is very important to provide them necessary education regarding the
symptoms and effects of disease as soon as possible (Moorhead and et.al., 2013). This will be
considered as the best method for preventing disease which will spend over the entire place.
While making planning of health service in public, it is necessary to identify number of
services necessary to provide care to patients. As there will be improper occurrence of incident,
at this time prevalence is important to measure service requirements.
2.3 Impact of current lifestyle
There are various current trends which makes social care and future health more
comprehensive to gather. Therefore, understanding regarding current health level and current
grounds should be analysed.
Cigarette smoking is considered as one of the dangerous long term problem which are
experienced by current generations. This is because of existing smoking level especially among
children and women are making critical question as its effects will be carried forward to future
generations. Consumption of alcohol is another issue which is experienced by the society and
cause deadly hazards for the human body (Puhl and Heuer, 2010).
Change in the diet level also cause some of the long term damages like living problem
and gastritis. It is also analysed that there is 46% maximization in possibility of obesity which
was caused because of restlessness and busy schedule. This also leads to sedentary lifestyle
which makes severe problems. Therefore various steps should be taken for minimizing the
damages. These are considered as some of the changes in lifestyle due to which there is a
problem regarding individual's well-being and health.
Health of people is dependent on their lifestyle and behavioural patterns. Type 2 diabetes
can also be managed properly if people will be used to daily exercises and healthy habits.
Another reason can be the dining pattern of individuals. There are many people who are not
taking balanced diet due to which they get long term effect on their health. People are also not
having regular check-ups which will break process of medication and in the cases like TB it will
be a serious problem (Stringhini and et.al., 2010).
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TASK 3
3.1
There are health priorities in London Borough of Hackney so as to make better
orientation in area for catering patients. The London Borough of Hackney can be said as London
Borough in inner London. Promotion of healthy and better diets will helps to make individuals
more healthy. Therefore people will be much healthier and in this way care of health settings will
be attractive in context of competition. It is very necessary to create health and well-being
priorities in the area so that people will be safe and healthy. Promotion of home based exercises
is the another habit which is good and should be passed on by company.
Living in London Borough of Hackney, several consideration must be taken regarding
well-being and health of people contains various factors affecting individual's health like
sociological, physical factors, environmental, economic and psychological environment
(Umberson and Karas Montez, 2010). In addition to this, various determinants are there which
affect health of human and well-being. Mainly included factors are there in Hackney, which can
be defined as: Physical factors: Genetic disorders, malfunctioning of parts of body, immune system and
hormonal imbalance which are there in human body are the type of physical factors
which affect individual's health. It can be high cholesterol, blood pressure etc. Psychological factors: Such factors are of cultural, behavioural and psychological which
makes involvement of human illness and physical health. Stress is a kind of
psychological factor and alcohol & smoking are type of behavioural factor. Environmental factors: Environment in which people are working and living consists of
various factors which includes physical, biological and chemical environmental factors
which affects well-being and health.
 Socio-economic factors: Environment, income and education are the significant socio-
economic factors which affects individual's health. For example, social health and higher
income produce better health (Puhl and Heuer, 2010).
3.2 Effectiveness of policies, systems and strategies
Strategy is termed as something which are explained by many people many a times must
not have real experience of ground level. The implementation requirement and policy are some
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of the important factors which are needed to implement in order to overcome several issues in
London Borough of Hackney. However, different situations can be there in the area in which
implementation at ground level is not possible as per the mentioned guidelines. This may happen
because of cultural, behavioural, social and economical patterns of individuals. In these kind of
situations either the framework of policy is not implemented or there is partial implementation.
Then results will not be as per predictions. The framework of policy for Hackney areas must be
defined separately and carrying out of implementation must be in proper way so as to have
maximum gain (Stringhini and et.al., 2010).
In care and health settings, various strategies are there which are used for making better
habits and qualities in human character. If these policies will get implemented in London
Borough of Hackney than following can be achieved:
 Better attraction of customers
 Good reputation of a company which will make them rise between other settings
 Better attractiveness of stakeholder
 Better employee loyalty can be gained
 Company will be able to seek and retain talent
With the support of better practices and polices, organisation will be likely to have
positive influence so that there will be proper achievement of growth and success in London
Borough of Hackney (Moorhead and et.al., 2013).
3.3 Improvement of well-being and health of people
In order to improve the well-being and health, it is very necessary to have knowledge
regarding the factors which cause route. Sometimes social factors like poverty cause negligence
and poor health habits. There should be proper health education, health promotion and physical
exercise which will helps in encouraging changes of behaviour. Physical factors: These factors are like high level of cholesterol, high blood pressure
which are caused by psychological factors. In a high pressure of work, there can be a
creation of increased blood pressure as well as stress. People should be aware of these
kinds of incidents and necessary arrangements must be made so as to deal with them
(Puhl and Heuer, 2010). Psychological factors: Many psychological factors are there which have direct influence
on health of human like change in behaviour. It affects sleeping, socializing and eating of
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human and also have impact on hormonal changes as well as on functions of heart like
heart rates. Another psychological factor is depression which affects disease of heart.
This have impact on circulatory system and on heart. If there will be excessive use of
alcohol and lack of exercise then poor habits like drug abuse are in relation with
depression. Behavioural factors: Behaviour is another factor which affects the well-being and health
of individual. For instance, drug abusing, drinking and smoking are some of the
behaviours which affect individual's health. There are various effects of alcohol
consumption on health as it damage many parts of body (Goldberg and McGee, 2011). Socio-economic factors: Poverty is the significant factor which affects well-being and
health. There are many people who are not having enough money for their living and it
influences the condition of mental stress which cause lack of sleep, workload etc.
 Environmental factors: These factors affects the life of human and is a significant
determinant in well-being and health of people. Religion, workplace, culture and climate
are some of the environmental factors which are necessary for overall well-being. For
example, if a environment will be polluted then it will have negative health effect and if
it will be clean then there will be positive health effects.
3.4 Implementation of activities for improving social and health care
There are various activities and processes which needs to be implemented as
precautionary actions for controlling spread of health disease. There are many people in UK who
are addicted to smoking, mainly it includes youths who are studying in colleges. It has been
recommended to start smoking cessation programmes which will help to spread awareness in the
society regarding the negative effects of smoking. These are the types of programmes which are
implemented so as to encourage individuals to quit smoking so that they can have healthy life
without any disease.
Smoking cause various lung diseases like cancer, TB etc. Major aim of smoking
cessation programs is to create awareness regarding detrimental health effects regarding
smoking. This program also includes motivational talks in the several organisations so as to
maximize awareness among employees regarding harmful effects of smoking on their fitness and
health (Smoking Cessation Program. 2017).
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CONCLUSION
Entire economy can be controlled by the health sector, because if people will not be
having proper health than they will not be able to contribute for the economy. In this report
organisational hierarchy of health sector are identified by the roles of entity. Some of the non-
infectious and infectious disease are analysed with the help of statistical data and identification
of key elements needed for improvements for controlling issues and procedures are identified.
Various procedures and information is being mentioned here for controlling issues related to
health. Well-being factors which are in relation with human and the dangerous situations are
being explained and solutions for overcoming disease are identified.
REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Bennett, P. ed., 2010. Risk communication and public health. Oxford University Press.
Betancourt, J.R., and et.al., 2016. Defining cultural competence: a practical framework for
addressing racial/ethnic disparities in health and health care. Public health reports.
Blas, E. and Kurup, A.S. eds., 2010. Equity, social determinants and public health programmes.
World Health Organization.
Bradley, E.H., and et.al., 2016. Variation in health outcomes: The role of spending on social
services, public health, and health care, 2000–09. Health Affairs. 35(5). pp.760-768.
Braveman, P., Egerter, S. and Williams, D.R., 2011. The social determinants of health: coming
of age. Annual review of public health. 32. pp.381-398.
Drummond, M.F., and et.al., 2015. Methods for the economic evaluation of health care
programmes. Oxford university press.
Ford, E.S. and Capewell, S., 2011. Proportion of the decline in cardiovascular mortality disease
due to prevention versus treatment: public health versus clinical care. Annual review of
public health. 32. pp.5-22.
Frieden, T.R., 2010. A framework for public health action: the health impact pyramid. American
journal of public health. 100(4). pp.590-595.
Goldberg, D.S. and McGee, S.J., 2011. Pain as a global public health priority. BMC public
health. 11(1). p.770.
Marmot, M. and Bell, R., 2012. Fair society, healthy lives. Public health. 126. pp.S4-S10.
Moorhead, S.A., and et.al., 2013. A new dimension of health care: systematic review of the uses,
benefits, and limitations of social media for health communication. Journal of medical
Internet research. 15(4).
Puhl, R.M. and Heuer, C.A., 2010. Obesity stigma: important considerations for public health.
American journal of public health. 100(6). pp.1019-1028.
Stringhini, S., and et.al., 2010. Association of socioeconomic position with health behaviors and
mortality. Jama. 303(12). pp.1159-1166.
Umberson, D. and Karas Montez, J., 2010. Social relationships and health: A flashpoint for
health policy. Journal of health and social behavior. 51(1_suppl). pp.S54-S66.
World Health Organization, 2015. Health Worker Role in Providing Safe Abortion Care and Post
Abortion Contraception. World Health Organization.
Online
Smoking Cessation Program. 2017. [Online]. Available
through:<https://www.hpb.gov.sg/workplace/workplace-programmes/smoking-
cessation-programmes>. [Accessed on 6th July 2017].
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