Global Inequalities in Healthcare Assignment Sample
Here’s the best sample of Global Inequalities in Healthcare Assignment, written by the expert.
Aim of study
The aim of this report is to present the global problem of health inequalities in healthcare sector as it is an important aspect and affects the population of different countries. The objective of this study is to present health inequalities as a global issue and leads to many serious health problems across the world. The two major global inequalities are inequality between groups of same society and inequality between nations. The proper understanding of different inequalities ae identified and solutions are proposed in this study.
Introduction
The society comprises of individuals and presents divisions in context to different aspects. The inequalities are due to wealth, culture, location and it is often transferred in the field of health as well. The level of health risks is different and they are directly related to the inequalities in social life. Health inequalities develop various possibilities to technological and scientific areas.
Health equality is basically an avoidable difference in the health of people between different population groups. These inequalities are against the social justice principles and do not occur by chance. These inequalities are determined mostly by social circumstances and beyond the control of individual but this situation limit the possibility of an individual to live healthy life (Marmot, 2015).
The health inequality existence means the right of diverse individuals to highest standards of mental and physical health across the population. Some examples of health inequality are life expectancy of people, learning disabilities, experience of good health, gender based health etc.
Determinants of health conditions
Most of the individuals consider that the health is related to only biological factors but it is a complex phenomenon and have various determinants based on the way of organizing and living life. These theories are explanatory and formed the basis for the discussion of health inequality.
The theory of living life depends on the biomedical science and relate to the disease mechanism (Deaton, 2015). It mainly focuses on the detailed understanding of human biology and provide explanation to understand the occurrence of health disorders and their corrective actions. It mostly supports the technologies for diagnosis, prevention, rehabilitation and cure within the modern health system.
On the other hand, the organizing theory depend on the biomedicine development and considers that the external environment like social, environmental, cultural, political, behavioural contexts affect the conditions of health of the population (Wilkinson, 2014). It emphasizes that the health condition of individuals depends on the way they organize their lives.
In the current era, both the theories co-exist and strengthening the health service. However, they have limited resources to deal with different social and environmental determinants and there are limited exceptions for the health event incidences (Bartley, 2004). The study of trends in the health conditions of population remain an important issue due to social determination of disease, health and health differentials between different countries. In addition, there is a strong relationship between economic and demographic development of health.
Social factors of health inequality
Health inequality condition of population is closely related to the characteristics of environmental and social context. For example, unhealthy working conditions affect the health conditions of people in negative manner. Biomedical science have emerged and influenced the health sector by explaining the health issues and diseases and kept the social and environmental factors as secondary matter (Kawachi, 2002). However, biomedical theories have not adequately explained the population phenomena like comparison of health conditions of rich and poor people.
With occurrence of many diseases and health problems in the social groups that live in disadvantaged situations suffer many type of discrimination. It is not by chance that poor countries and people living in deprived areas have worse health conditions as compared to rich countries (McMullin, 2004). In any given country, the poor regions and the marginalized ethnic groups have worse health conditions in consistent manner. It is also indicated that when policies strengthen the social protection or improve economic conditions, there are positive health impacts.
In present era, it is important to identify difference between inequities and inequalities on health. Inequalities refer to the measurable differences within the health conditions and related to different access to cure, prevention and rehabilitation of health (Stiglitz, 2013). Health inequities refer to the inequalities that are considered as unjust and situations stemmed from different forms of injustice.
Theories of Health inequalities
The health inequality study has started from different theoretical foundations and mainly focuses on the explanation of inequalities among social group of same nation. The theories of health inequalities can be organized in two explanations; one is based on structural explanations and individuals (Marmot, 2015).
The psychosocial theory has been developed with the idea that inequalities does not only determine the material differences but also explain other deficiencies like poor housing, poor sanitation conditions, lack of income to cover the costs, but the inequalities generate the complex psychological phenomena and in other words, expressed as social inequalities. The concept has been further expanded to existing inequalities among the forms of discrimination like ethnicity, gender etc.
The structural theory explains the idea of social determinants that generate health inequalities and shaped by the determinants that exists within the structure of society i.e. productive organization, politics etc. The politics define and organize the situations that reduce or favour the health inequalities (Braveman, 2014). With the reinforcement of this theory, it results in expansion of social inequalities.
Possible solutions for growing health inequalities
There are various situations that reduce the inequalities in different sphere of human life and guarantee the sustainability of human society. Health inequalities expose one of the major inequality facets that prevail in the human life, and have damaging effects on human existence. It is also reflected in the major differences in expectancy of life by suffering the disease burdens.
The social determinants play a vital role in health inequalities as they alleviate the inequalities between different nations (Johnston, 2014). The main reason is that there is a lack of political motivation for reducing the health inequalities. One of the important aspects is the consideration of health system consolidation on the basis of biomedical knowledge and related technologies in the industrial as well as service sectors.
These forces consolidate the health systems and affects the structural terms or favour the actions for social determinants of health (Raphael, 2012). The literature on health inequalities mainly focuses on inequalities between social groups in the nation. And it is important to consider different life aspects of societies that imply the health inequalities.
The efforts to overcome the issues of health inequality can lead to positive outcomes within the society. One of the advanced initiatives to overcome the dilemma of health inequalities is the implementation of the concept “health in all policies”. This strategy aims to include the consideration of health equality and improvement in formulation of all policies of different sectors like housing, public safety, labour, agriculture, education, social protection, transportation etc.
Many developed countries have coordinated with the respective government actions in the field of health inequalities. These countries have capable information systems and interpreted the existing health inequalities level. It is important to involve the inequalities and inequities and their magnitude for generation of strong policy actions and reducing them.
In the case of poor countries, the health inequalities are of very high magnitude and there are many examples, where the health inequalities are addressed as main priority in the public policy. For example, the establishment of World Health Organization and its commission on social health determinants created their own national commission.
After two years, the report has been produced in assimilation to the action of the government (Wilkinson, 2014). The implementation of redistributive policies in developing countries such as micro-credits, income transfer can also have positive effect on health inequalities, even when they are not considered as non-health policies.
In context to inequalities between countries, the actions need to be even more timid. For example, the report of WHO commission emphasizes mainly on the inequalities between different societies and very less emphasis on inequalities between different nations.
This report has been dedicated to the health inequalities in global context and focuses on the need to strengthen the global governance and explains the need of coordination between different inter-governmental agencies (Kawachi, 2002). Some countries have also deployed these ideas such as Millennium Development Goals that focuses on the removal of extreme poverty and Sustainable Development Goals that focuses on the sustainable development in form of social, economic, and environmental context.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be considered that the health inequality issue has increased over the time and its impacts on public policies aims at improving the health of population. The global problem is the social inequalities in health and affect human societies at great extent. It is mainly due to the inequalities between different social groups in every society.
However, the inequalities exist between different nations and societies are of greater magnitude. These inequalities can be unjust or subject to political actions. The related theories have been explained to put forward the types of inequalities and their prevalence. The mechanism to solve the issue of health inequality is provided i.e. inclusion of health considerations in all types of policies in the global system.
References
Bartley M. (2004), Health inequality: Theories, concepts and Methods. Cambridge: Polity Press; 2004
Deaton, A. (2015), The great escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 2015.
Johnston DC (2014), editor. Divide: The perils of our growing inequality. New York: The New Press; 2014.
Kawachi I, Subramanian S, Almeida-Filho N. (2002), A glossary for health inequalities. J Epidemiol Community Health 2002; 56(9):647-652
Marmot M. (2015), The health Gap: The challenges of an unequal world. London: Blomsbury; 2015.
McMullin J. (2004), Understanding social inequalities: Intersection of class, age, gender, ethnicity, and race in Canada. Ontario: Oxford University Press; 2004.
Raphael D. (2012), An analysis in international experiences in tackling health inequalities. In: Raphael D, editor. Tackling health inequalities: Lessons from international experiences. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press; 2012. p. 229-264.
Stiglitz JE. (2013), The price of inequality. How today´s divide society endangers our future. New York: WW Norton & Company; 2013.
Wilkinson RG, Pickett KE. (2014), The spirit level: why more equal societies almost always do better. London: Allen Lane; 2009.
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