SSC120 Assignment: Health Inequality and Social Position in Society

This essay delves into the multifaceted concept of health inequality, examining how an individual's social position significantly influences their health outcomes. The essay defines health from various perspectives, including the perspectives of common people and professionals, and highlights the social and economic determinants impacting health. It explores how factors such as social class, income, education, and environmental conditions contribute to health disparities. The essay also discusses the historical evolution of medical treatments and contrasts traditional and contemporary approaches to healthcare, including the medical and social models of health. Furthermore, the essay emphasizes the importance of addressing social determinants of health to achieve health equity, advocating for social approaches to tackle health inequalities and promote overall well-being. The essay provides a comprehensive overview of the complex interplay between social factors and health, emphasizing the need for a holistic approach to healthcare.

Running head: HEALTH INEQUALITY
HEALTH INEQUALITY
Name of Student:
Name of University:
Author’s Note:

1HEALTH INEQUALITY
Health inequality is the difference in the health of individual or unequal distribution of
health determinants. The major reason is difference in social and economic status of the people.
The essay highlights the theoretical concept which is related to the different interpretation of
health and illness.
Health is the crucial state of wellbeing. It can be viewed as the state of fitness and
wellness, which also involves mental peace. Some regard health as absence of illness. To
different people, health is viewed in different perspective (Karimi and Brazier 2016). As per
perception of common people, health depended on the pragmatism and regarded as such
occurrence and assessment based on finding of individual reasonable to expect to focus on the
age, medical condition and social status (Damarin et al. 2016). As per the study of Wulff, Donato
and Lurie (2015) it can be said that health of the person rely on their psychological state of mind.
If a person is mentally healthy, they tend to be physically well. Thus, the author has regarded
health as the state of peace of mind and can be influenced by their surroundings. It can be said
that different researcher has defined Health in their different perspectives.
Health outcome is the process of measuring the response of individual on given
treatment. Outcome of health depend on various determinant of health and factors. The factor
can be summarized as social and economic environment, physical surrounding, education, social
support and genetics (Beattie et al. 2015). The social determinants which comprises of poverty,
race, ethnicity, gender and income are the significant influencing power for the outcome of
health. People with high economic status and high income tend to have better health. They have
access to all the health services and treatment irrespective of cost and expenditure. However, low
income group peoples cannot afford quality health cares which directly have negative affect on
their health. Likewise, highly educated people have better understanding of the treatment and

2HEALTH INEQUALITY
medication which is linked with good health whereas low education is associated with poor
health. According to Eaves, Gyi and Gibb (2016) a healthy environment with safe water and
healthy workplace contribute to good health. Health is also influence by genetic factor.
According to Lonardo et al. (2016) there are various disease reported like diabetes, HIV/AIDS
etc. which are hereditary in nature. Thus, they also affects the health of the people which can be
transmitted to next generation. Vlaev et al. (2016) has discussed that it is the personal behavior
which greatly influence the health outcome. For example the habit of smoking, drinking
alcohols and unhealthy heating habits, pose negative impact health resulting in poor outcome.
Apart from such factors, health behavior, and clinical care are also known to influence the health
outcome of people. Thus, there the need to focus on the health factors for better outcome.
The concept of health is different as per the lay and professional perspective. As per
WHO definition, health is conceptualized as the state of the complete absence of any disease
(World Health Organization 2017). However, according to the lay population, they reflect the
complete health and themes. They regard as the state of happiness and life without psychological
distress. According to Lay people, a person is healthy if there is existence of mental peace,
however, which can come by removing the tension from life. They also believe that the health of
people depends on their economic and social factors. As per the perspective and understanding
of health by the lay people, social class is involved in the determination of health. People with
better income, high economic status, getting education and upper level are more benefitted by
quality health service. However, economically low people of different ethnic, race and culture
suffer from health inequality (Evans and Stoddart 2017). However, the professional definition of
health covers the biological and social which is important to be considered. Thus, from the
analyzing it can be emphasized that definition of health and its outcome are significantly

3HEALTH INEQUALITY
different. It is important in the terms of its wider perspective which give various conceptual
knowledge related to health.
Bengtsson (2016) has conducted a qualitative study to analyses the concept of health.
Author has included common people in the survey and found that their understanding of health is
implicated by the social class. The finding is supported by the Marmot (2015) where the author
has found that high class of people are physically healthy than the low class group of people. As
discussed earlier, social class of people also have effects on health, the concept is accepted by the
common people and consider it as the major part of health.
Historically, there has been the using of the plant as medicine, with due progress of time
with imitation of fauna has led to the development of medical practice and knowledge which was
passed to generations (Hosseinzadeh et al. 2015). Even the early man has practiced effective
health care and medicine. It is evident from the study of ancient Egyptians that they used opium
and cannabis to treat pain. Traditional treatments do not involve the use of chemicals drugs;
however, they have included plants as the mean of treatments and make use of different method
to maintain god health. It is evident from the study of Tugume et al. (2019) that people used
plant and product for treatment of various diseases. However, in just 50 years, the medical
invention has led to the discovery of modern medicine and treatment, which has improved the
health of peoples (Moosavyzadeh et al. 2018). In 1965, the first pacemaker was used; in 1967,
first coronary bypass surgery was done (Bains et al. 2017; Bakaeen et al. 2018).
In recent times, with the advance in science and research, new medicine and surgery are
evolving. Many drugs have been developed which has resulted in good health of the people. The
transition of traditional treatment to contemporary treatment has led to because of medicine.
Studies have shown that there are such medicines available which is known to treat various

4HEALTH INEQUALITY
deadly diseases like bacterial infection, ulcers and diabetes, which are not curable by the
traditional treatment. It was observed in the growing populations that with the development of
medicine, health of people have improved and health burden has decreased in the world
(National Center for Health Statistics 2016).
In today's society, holistic frame of reference is less dominant in most of the developed
societies. Majority of people still consider medical model as most prevailing. Thus, it can be said
that it is not that applicable in today’s society. They majorly used for remodeling the social
system (Binford 2019). However, the medical model is used to give an insight of diseases like
how it is detected and recognized by the involvement of process of description, differentiation
and observation. The model is widely accepted in society because it focuses more on disability
and impairment than the ability and strength of individual. Hospital and another health clinic
with medical intervention is the mean of proper treatment in today's society (Haegele and Hodge
2016). This model represents that human body having any disease and is due to a biological
reason. It is merely a scientific measure and factor of health. The medical model has excluded
the social determinants of health and considered only the biological factors for prevalence of any
disease.
The model also has many criticisms. The major criticism is that health of individual is
mostly linked with the medical influence rather than to the environment and social amendment.
Many people have perception that though medicine gives effective relive to the illness at the
initial period, the root cause persists in the patients as it is also associated with various side effect
(Jasemi et al. 2017). The concern called for the involvement of social approach. This tends to
examine the health determinant, which includes social, cultural, environmental and political. It is
helpful as address the health inequalities because social approach concentrates on the root cause

5HEALTH INEQUALITY
of illness such as poverty, illiteracy and low economic status. Thus, it can be said that the
psychosocial factors with the alignment of environmental and economic factors determine the
health of society and help in developing a community with health equality.
Social approach to health offers clear idea and rationale about the poor health of people
(Lewin et al. 2015). It has highlighted the health inequality that is prevailing in the current
society. It is helpful to make people understand the loophole existing in the current health
scenario. It gives reasons to the government to take important measure to tackle the problems of
health inequality.
Lastly, from the above discussion, it can be said that health of the individual is the most
important factor contributing to wellbeing of individual. However, some of the people with
different ethnic, race and culture tend to suffer from health inequality. It results in the high
prevalence of disease and illness in the minority groups. They also undergo mental illness as they
have to deal with discrimination and psychological harassment from the high society people.
Therefore, it can be said that for equal health in the society, step needs to be taken to eradicate
the poverty, illiteracy and social wellbeing. Social approach to health is the key solution to the
above stated issues.

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