Perceptions of Health: Social Determinants and Primary Health Care

This essay discusses how perceptions of health, influenced by social determinants and principles of primary health care, affect an individual's expectations of their health and wellbeing. It identifies three concepts of health: physical strength, balanced living, and active lifestyle, linking these to financial stability, healthy habits, and community engagement. The essay explores how factors like aging, exercise, and poverty, mediated by employment and community participation, impact health expectations. It concludes that understanding these perceptions is crucial for improving health outcomes, emphasizing the importance of addressing social determinants in primary health care. Desklib offers a wide range of resources, including past papers and solved assignments, to support students in their studies.

Running head: PRIMARY HEALTH CARE 1
Primary Health Care
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

PRIMARY HEALTH CARE 2
Introduction
Primary health care is vital healthcare made universally available to people and
acceptable to them (Lawati, Dennis, Short & Abdulhadi, 2018). It addresses the wider health
determinants and focuses on the similar and inclusive features of physical, mental and social
health. Furthermore, it delivers whole-person attention for health needs over the lifespan and not
just for a set of particular illnesses. The essay will discuss the concepts that reflect what health
means and how the perceptions of health impact a person’s expectations of health and wellbeing
influenced by social determinants of health along with principles of primary health care. The
principle of primary health care to be used is community participation and employment as a
social health determinant.
Identify three terms/concepts that reflect what health means to you, and briefly explain
how these terms/concepts inform your concept of health.
The first concept of what health means is that being strong physically show that a person
is healthy. This informs that for one to have the strength to deal with physical life challenges to
remain healthy, he or she must be stable financially which is possible only if the person has a
good paying job. They should engage themselves in some operations with other community
members to be encouraged and also encourage others especially the lonely peers. Moreover,
health is living well and promoting balance. To live well means that a person is practising
healthy eating habits and is free from unhealthy behaviours like stress. This lifestyle is only
achievable if one can afford proper nutrition and engage himself in exercises by participating in
the community. Finally, health is being active, eating right and being in shape which informs that
to stay fit physically, mentally and socially one must go out for a job event to keep him active
and involve himself in activities in the society.

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How do the perceptions of health, influenced by Social Determinants of Health and
Principles of Primary Health Care, affect an individual's expectations of their health and
wellbeing?
How an individual perceives health, it indicates the general health status of that person.
Several older people see ageing negatively since they have retired from work and are not active
in community participation. They define it in terms of declining or poor health and wellbeing and
therefore their expectations on health and wellbeing declines (Millan & Smith, 2019).
Perceptions of health affect motivation negatively and positively. For instance, when a person is
not an active member in community participation and is unemployed, he or she may fuel the
feeling of fear, depression or stress which adversely may impact their health and wellbeing. The
person has little choice on being dependent on public assistance programs to meet essential
personal and family needs; hence their expectations of improving their health is lowered.
Exercise is a factor which may affect an individual’s expectations of their health and
well-being (Mein & Grant, 2018). People perceive practice as a by-product of social activities,
and when a person is employed without a free time to do some exercises or take part in the
community work, he or she may feel that their health may not be better unless exercise is done.
Consequently, weak, ill people with less paying jobs perceive poor health expectations especially
when they cannot cater to their medication (Shishehgar, Gholizadeh, DiGiacomo, Green &
Davidson, 2017).
Conclusion
Health can be defined in three terms. The thought of determining health as strong tell that
when a person has the strength to deal with mental and physical challenges is termed as healthy.

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On the other hand, living well and encouraging balance through proper nutrition indicate health.
Also, health is defined as being active which inform that physical fitness through exercises show
that a person is healthy. From the discussion, it is learned that health perceptions such as ageing,
exercise, and poverty, when influenced by employment along with community participation can
decline or improve the expectations of a person’s health and wellbeing.

PRIMARY HEALTH CARE 5
References
Lawati, M. H. A., Dennis, S., Short, S. D., & Abdulhadi, N. N. (2018). Patient safety and safety
culture in primary health care: a systematic review. BMC family practice, 19(1), 104.
Mein, G., & Grant, R. (2018). A cross-sectional exploratory analysis between pet ownership,
sleep, exercise, health and neighbourhood perceptions: the Whitehall II cohort study.
BMC Geriatrics, 18(1), 176.
Millan, M., & Smith, D. (2019). A Comparative Sociology of Gypsy Traveller Health in the
UK. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(3), 379.
Shishehgar, S., Gholizadeh, L., DiGiacomo, M., Green, A., & Davidson, P. M. (2017). Health
and socio-cultural experiences of refugee women: an integrative review. Journal of
immigrant and minority health, 19(4), 959-973.