Determinants of Health

Apply principles of nursing theory to the public health system by analyzing determinants of health and the public health intervention wheel.

What are some factors that make some people healthy and others ill? Healthy People 2020 identifies five determinants of health that influence the health of individuals and populations. Healthy People 2020 describes them as “a range of personal, social, economic, and environmental factors that influence health status” (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2018, About Determinants of Health, para. 1). Determinants fall into five categories, including (a) policy making, (b) social factors, (c) health services, (d) individual behavior, and (e) biology and genetics.

Go to the Determinants of Health link at https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/about/foundation-health-measures/Determinants-of-Health (Links to an external site.), and click on each determinant to read about it.
Choose one of the five determinants other than individual behavior (as we are all aware of how individual behavior impacts health). In your post, describe this determinant and its importance.
Discuss how a community health nurse (CHN) could use one of the 17 intervention categories from the Public Health Intervention Wheel to address this determinant (Nies & McEwen, 2019).
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. (2018). Healthy People 2020: About Determinants of Health. Retrieved from https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/about/foundation-health-measures/Determinants-of-Health
Determinants of Health

What makes some people healthy and others unhealthy?
How can we create a society in which everyone has a chance to live a long, healthy life?
Healthy People 2020 is exploring these questions by:

Developing objectives that address the relationship between health status and biology, individual behavior, health services, social factors, and policies.
Emphasizing an ecological approach to disease prevention and health promotion. An ecological approach focuses on both individual-level and population-level determinants of health and interventions.

About Determinants of Health
The range of personal, social, economic, and environmental factors that influence health status are known as determinants of health.

Determinants of health fall under several broad categories:

Policymaking
Social factors
Health services
Individual behavior
Biology and genetics
It is the interrelationships among these factors that determine individual and population health. Because of this, interventions that target multiple determinants of health are most likely to be effective. Determinants of health reach beyond the boundaries of traditional health care and public health sectors; sectors such as education, housing, transportation, agriculture, and environment can be important allies in improving population health.

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Policymaking
Policies at the local, state, and federal level affect individual and population health. Increasing taxes on tobacco sales, for example, can improve population health by reducing the number of people using tobacco products.

Some policies affect entire populations over extended periods of time while simultaneously helping to change individual behavior. For example, the 1966 Highway Safety Act and the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act authorized the Federal Government to set and regulate standards for motor vehicles and highways. This led to an increase in safety standards for cars, including seat belts, which in turn reduced rates of injuries and deaths from motor vehicle accidents.1

Social Factors
Social determinants of health reflect the social factors and physical conditions of the environment in which people are born, live, learn, play, work, and age. Also known as social and physical determinants of health, they impact a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes.

Don’t miss the Social Determinants of Health topic area and objectives.
Examples of social determinants include:

Availability of resources to meet daily needs, such as educational and job opportunities, living wages, or healthful foods
Social norms and attitudes, such as discrimination
Exposure to crime, violence, and social disorder, such as the presence of trash
Social support and social interactions
Exposure to mass media and emerging technologies, such as the Internet or cell phones
Socioeconomic conditions, such as concentrated poverty
Quality schools
Transportation options
Public safety
Residential segregation
Examples of physical determinants include:

Natural environment, such as plants, weather, or climate change
Built environment, such as buildings or transportation
Worksites, schools, and recreational settings
Housing, homes, and neighborhoods
Exposure to toxic substances and other physical hazards
Physical barriers, especially for people with disabilities
Aesthetic elements, such as good lighting, trees, or benches
Poor health outcomes are often made worse by the interaction between individuals and their social and physical environment.

For example, millions of people in the United States live in places that have unhealthy levels of ozone or other air pollutants. In counties where ozone pollution is high, there is often a higher prevalence of asthma in both adults and children compared with state and national averages. Poor air quality can worsen asthma symptoms, especially in children.2

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Health Services
Both access to health services and the quality of health services can impact health. Healthy People 2020 directly addresses access to health services as a topic area and incorporates quality of health services throughout a number of topic areas.

Lack of access, or limited access, to health services greatly impacts an individual’s health status. For example, when individuals do not have health insurance, they are less likely to participate in preventive care and are more likely to delay medical treatment.3

Don’t miss the Access to Health Services topic area and objectives.
Barriers to accessing health services include:

Lack of availability
High cost
Lack of insurance coverage
Limited language access
These barriers to accessing health services lead to:

Unmet health needs
Delays in receiving appropriate care
Inability to get preventive services
Hospitalizations that could have been prevented
Individual Behavior
Individual behavior also plays a role in health outcomes. For example, if an individual quits smoking, his or her risk of developing heart disease is greatly reduced.

Many public health and health care interventions focus on changing individual behaviors such as substance abuse, diet, and physical activity. Positive changes in individual behavior can reduce the rates of chronic disease in this country.

Examples of individual behavior determinants of health include:

Diet
Physical activity
Alcohol, cigarette, and other drug use
Hand washing
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Biology and Genetics
Some biological and genetic factors affect specific populations more than others. For example, older adults are biologically prone to being in poorer health than adolescents due to the physical and cognitive effects of aging.

Sickle cell disease is a common example of a genetic determinant of health. Sickle cell is a condition that people inherit when both parents carry the gene for sickle cell. The gene is most common in people with ancestors from West African countries, Mediterranean countries, South or Central American countries, Caribbean islands, India, and Saudi Arabia.

Examples of biological and genetic social determinants of health include:

Age
Sex
HIV status
Inherited conditions, such as sickle-cell anemia, hemophilia, and cystic fibrosis
Carrying the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene, which increases risk for breast and ovarian cancer
Family history of heart disease