A thought-provoking and evocative account that considers both the policies we think of as "health policyand those that we don't, The Political Determinants of Health provides a novel, multidisciplinary framework for addressing the systemic barriers preventing the United States from becoming the healthiest nation in the world.
Gain the knowledge and skills you need to promote equity in health care! Focused on what nurses can do to address health disparities, The Social and Structural Determinants of Health: Educating Nurses to Advance Health Equity provides a comprehensive look at how factors such as income, education, and race can lead to systemic disadvantage in health and well-being. It shows how nurses can partner with communities and organizations to understand the root causes of inequities in health, develop equity-minded skills, and take action to advance long-lasting progress. Written by Teri A. Murray, a noted nursing educator with rich expertise in health equity, this text makes it easy to learn and apply the principles that can lead to better health outcomes and healthier communities. - Coverage of the social determinants of health (SDOH) addresses the environmental conditions in which people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age, and how these conditions lead to systemic disadvantage in health and all aspects of life. - Descriptions of the health disparities seen in marginalized and minoritized populations include structural determinants such as the distribution of wealth, power, social and cultural norms, and economic and political factors. - Context for the health disparities seen at the population level includes both structural and social determinants. - Consistent format of chapters includes a chapter overview, learning objectives, Reflection questions, a case study or community-based experience, and more. - Unit I of the book includes five chapters patterned after the framework used by Healthy People 2030: Social Determinants of Health, with a sixth chapter on the historical context of race and racism in health and how it is an underlying factor for the inequities that lead to health disparities. - Chapters in Unit II provide strategies and approaches that nurses can employ to advance health equity.
This book documents the ways that clinical practitioners and trainees have used the “structural competency” framework to reduce inequalities in health. The essays describe on-the-ground ways that clinicians, educators, and activists craft structural interventions to enhance health outcomes, student learning, and community organizing around issues of social justice in health and healthcare. Each chapter of the book begins with a case study that illuminates a competency in reorienting clinical and public health practice toward community, institutional and policy level intervention based on alliances with social agencies, community organizations and policy makers. Written by authors who are trained in both clinical and social sciences, the chapters cover pedagogy in classrooms and clinics, community collaboration, innovative health promotion approaches in non-health sectors and in public policies, offering a view of effective care as structural intervention and a road map toward its implementation. Structural Competency in Mental Health and Medicine is a cutting-edge resource for psychiatrists, primary care physicians, addiction medicine specialists, emergency medicine specialists, nurses, social workers, public health practitioners, and other clinicians working toward equality in health.
In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.
The Social Determinants of Mental Health aims to fill the gap that exists in the psychiatric, scholarly, and policy-related literature on the social determinants of mental health: those factors stemming from where we learn, play, live, work, and age that impact our overall mental health and well-being. The editors and an impressive roster of chapter authors from diverse scholarly backgrounds provide detailed information on topics such as discrimination and social exclusion; adverse early life experiences; poor education; unemployment, underemployment, and job insecurity; income inequality, poverty, and neighborhood deprivation; food insecurity; poor housing quality and housing instability; adverse features of the built environment; and poor access to mental health care. This thought-provoking book offers many beneficial features for clinicians and public health professionals: Clinical vignettes are included, designed to make the content accessible to readers who are primarily clinicians and also to demonstrate the practical, individual-level applicability of the subject matter for those who typically work at the public health, population, and/or policy level. Policy implications are discussed throughout, designed to make the content accessible to readers who work primarily at the public health or population level and also to demonstrate the policy relevance of the subject matter for those who typically work at the clinical level. All chapters include five to six key points that focus on the most important content, helping to both prepare the reader with a brief overview of the chapter's main points and reinforce the "take-away" messages afterward. In addition to the main body of the book, which focuses on selected individual social determinants of mental health, the volume includes an in-depth overview that summarizes the editors' and their colleagues' conceptualization, as well as a final chapter coauthored by Dr. David Satcher, 16th Surgeon General of the United States, that serves as a "Call to Action," offering specific actions that can be taken by both clinicians and policymakers to address the social determinants of mental health. The editors have succeeded in the difficult task of balancing the individual/clinical/patient perspective and the population/public health/community point of view, while underscoring the need for both groups to work in a unified way to address the inequities in twenty-first century America. The Social Determinants of Mental Health gives readers the tools to understand and act to improve mental health and reduce risk for mental illnesses for individuals and communities. Students preparing for the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) will also benefit from this book, as the MCAT in 2015 will test applicants' knowledge of social determinants of health. The social determinants of mental health are not distinct from the social determinants of physical health, although they deserve special emphasis given the prevalence and burden of poor mental health.
The World Health Organization defines the social determinants of health as "the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life." These forces and systems include economic policies, development agendas, cultural and social norms, social policies, and political systems. In an era of pronounced human migration, changing demographics, and growing financial gaps between rich and poor, a fundamental understanding of how the conditions and circumstances in which individuals and populations exist affect mental and physical health is imperative. Educating health professionals about the social determinants of health generates awareness among those professionals about the potential root causes of ill health and the importance of addressing them in and with communities, contributing to more effective strategies for improving health and health care for underserved individuals, communities, and populations. Recently, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop to develop a high-level framework for such health professional education. A Framework for Educating Health Professionals to Address the Social Determinants of Health also puts forth a conceptual model for the framework's use with the goal of helping stakeholder groups envision ways in which organizations, education, and communities can come together to address health inequalities.
In this current environment, it is urgent to understand how oppression and health are closely connected. Oppression: A Social Determinant of Health offers a thorough and accessible overview of the root or structural causes of ill health, such as capitalism, globalization, colonialism, medicalization and neoliberalism. The contributors to this volume insist that the key to tackling these structural forces is understanding and changing oppressive practices that cause ill health, thus reframing growing health inequities within the scope of moral responsibility and social change. This thoroughly updated second edition contains contributions from internationally recognized experts in the field of critical social science analyses in health systems and health sciences studies. New chapters provide timely discussions about oppression, Treaty Rights, Big Pharma, the Anthropocene and the COVID-19 pandemic. This book provides a comprehensive overview of core ideas for investigating how oppression “gets under the skin” to perpetuate health inequities.
Evidence indicates that actions within four main themes (early child development fair employment and decent work social protection and the living environment) are likely to have the greatest impact on the social determinants of health and health inequities. A systematic search and analysis of recommendations and policy guidelines from intergovernmental organizations and international bodies identified practical policy options for action on social determinants within these four themes. Policy options focused on early childhood education and care; child poverty; investment strategies for an inclusive economy; active labour market programmes; working conditions; social cash transfers; affordable housing; and planning and regulatory mechanisms to improve air quality and mitigate climate change. Applying combinations of these policy options alongside effective governance for health equity should enable WHO European Region Member States to reduce health inequities and synergize efforts to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Since 1965 the foreign-born population of the United States has swelled from 9.6 million or 5 percent of the population to 45 million or 14 percent in 2015. Today, about one-quarter of the U.S. population consists of immigrants or the children of immigrants. Given the sizable representation of immigrants in the U.S. population, their health is a major influence on the health of the population as a whole. On average, immigrants are healthier than native-born Americans. Yet, immigrants also are subject to the systematic marginalization and discrimination that often lead to the creation of health disparities. To explore the link between immigration and health disparities, the Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity held a workshop in Oakland, California, on November 28, 2017. This summary of that workshop highlights the presentations and discussions of the workshop.
The first textbook devoted to this emerging area, Health Systems Science now brings you fully up to date with today's key issues and solutions. This increasingly important branch of health care explores how health care is delivered, how health care professionals work together to deliver that care, and how the health system can improve patient care and health care delivery. Along with basic and clinical sciences, health systems science is rapidly becoming a crucial 'third pillar' of medical science, with an emphasis on understanding the role of human factors, systems engineering, leadership, and patient improvement strategies that will help transform the future of health care and ensure greater patient safety. In this 2nd Edition, new chapters, new exercises, and new information help you acquire the knowledge and skills you need for success in today's challenging healthcare system. - The first comprehensive text for mastering health systems science, offering practical coverage of all of the factors in the lives of patients that influence their well-being, the structures and processes of the health system itself, societal factors, communication, and information technology. - NEW to this edition: New content on systems thinking, ethics and legal issues, and international care models further define and address this new important component of health care education; additional exercises; and expanded information on the patient experience and private practice. - Complete coverage of patient safety, quality improvement, value in health care, teamwork, stewardship of health care resources, population health, clinical informatics, care coordination, leadership, and health care financing/reform. - Patient improvement strategies incorporate checklists, information technology, team training, and more. - A consistent chapter template provides clear coverage of each topic, including Learning Objectives, Chapter Outline, Core Chapter Content, Summary, Questions for Reflection, and Annotated Bibliography and References. - Developed by the American Medical Association's Accelerating Change in Medical Education Consortium, and authored by a team that includes AMA staff members working with individuals from the Consortium member schools.
