NRS-428VN-0501-Concepts in Community and Public Health

NRS-428VN-0501-Concepts in Community and Public Health: What are social determinants of health? Explain how social determinants of health contribute to the development of disease…

NRS-428VN-0501-Concepts in Community and Public Health

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What are social determinants of health? Explain how social determinants of health contribute to the development of disease.  Describe the fundamental idea that the communicable disease chain model is designed to represent. Give an example of the steps a nurse can take to break the link within the communicable disease chain.

Resources within your text covering international/global health, and the websites in the topic materials, will assist you in answering this discussion question.

Concepts in Community and Public Health
The social determinants of health (SDH) refer to the conditions in which individuals get born, live, age, and work along with other interrelated, complex economic systems and social structures which shape these conditions. SDH may include social environment aspects such as income, education, marital status, discrimination, and education level (Andermann, 2016). The physical environment may encompass an individual’s area of residence and crowding conditions. The health systems include insurance status and access to quality healthcare.
There are some social determinants in specific subgroups in the population that contribute to disease development.

For instance, individuals with low socioeconomic status and who are less empowered seem to work and live in more degraded environs where they are more exposed to disease’ risk factors and chronic stress’ physiologic impacts. Subsequently, they usually have shorter lives and worse health status (World Health Organization). However, for those working and living in communities associated with high socioeconomic status have less contagious diseases. The promoting factors of health in an individual’s living conditions like wealth, income, power, and influence distribution instead of genetics and risk factors are the main influences on vulnerability to injury or disease or risk of contracting diseases.

Communicable disease refers to diseases transmitted either indirectly by a vector or on direct contact with the infected person. For micro-organisms to spread and cause an infection, there are some conditions that must be met, which involves an interaction occurring between the environment, the host, and the micro-organism. The chain consists of the micro-organism leaving the host through the exit portal, then gets transmitted on through the mode of transmission and gets into the host through the entry portal. Every step in the chain is a link, and when all the links are present, the infection develops. If any of the links get broken, the infection does not occur.

According to Edmonson et al. (2017), the nurses have the role of breaking these links through identifying sources of infection and managing them properly. For instance, they can prevent the spread of foodborne illness outbreak through training cooks and personnel in food-service on ways to store appropriately, make preparations and serve foods (Nursing Times, 2016). They can also teach caregivers for vulnerable populations like children the best way to prevent diseases hence breaking the chain of the spread of infectious diseases among such populations.

References
Andermann, A., & CLEAR Collaboration (2016). Taking action on the social determinants of health in clinical practice: a framework for health professionals. CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l’Association medicale canadienne, 188(17-18), E474–E483. https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.160177
Edmonson, C., McCarthy, C., Trent-Adams, S., McCain, C., & Marshall, J. (2017). Emerging global health issues: A nurse’s role. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 22(1).
World Health Organization, (n.d.). Social Determinants of Health. World Health Organization (WHO).  Retrieved