Influences of Social Determinants

Among many of the perspectives on the disparity between the health of one individual

person/group to that of a differing one’s, there exists one that believes that the factors of genetic

endowment, human behavior, and medical care are the most prevalent factors in contributing to

these differences. In Anne-Emanuelle Birn’s reading of the Global Health and Global Health

Ethics textbook, “Addressing the societal determinants of health: the key global health ethics

imperative of our times”, however, an argument is made against this perspective; these factors

are only a small fraction to explain health and disease and of their prevalence in different groups

of peoples. Birn concludes that, instead, a broad range of factors called societal determinants are

what cause these differences and contribute to health on all levels.

This conclusion is not based on empty speculation; instead, Birn introduces the first few

factors of societal determinants: food, water, and proper sheltering/living conditions. Through

the statistics of this first premise, Birn creates a sense that health and disease can be impacted

through the broader sense of other factors rather than through the windowed lens of the

perspective in question. By using fractional values and bringing into perspective large data

values, Birn successfully introduces the scale of which societal determinants affect quality of

living and health in general, impacting large societies and disadvantaged peoples around the

globe. As a result, the initial perspective that Birn is arguing against begins to lose credibility; if

genetic endowment, human behavior, and medical care are the most prevalent factors, why are

such factors introduced by societal determinants such as food, water, and shelter contributing to

the life and mortality of so many?

 However, while food, water, and sheltering conditions are used as a premise to discredit

the opposing perspective, Birn introduces how major societal determinants, such as income

levels (social classes), racism, and gender, can also be a large contributor to health on all levels

in a new premise, supporting her first premise through supplying an example of how even

exclusion applied to social structures largely affects varying facets of health. In cases in which

human behavior and medical care are expected to apply, the second premise creates the idea that

more structural social factors, especially that of systematic hatred and opposition against a

certain group of people both endanger but also creates a system in which human behavior and

medical care are not enough to sustain a good quality of life / health. In this case, it matters not

of inherited genetics, how one acts, or the medical care; these systems largely inhibit certain

groups’ access to a secure mental and physical health that would have been available to them

should they not have been affiliated by race, social class, or gender. Through this observation, it

can be noted that the applications of societal determinants on an individual or their group take

precedence over genetic endowment, human behavior, or even healthcare.

The existence of societal determinants are what allow or disallows one to have a readily

accessible ease of health. Birn’s conclusion that societal determinants are what shape health on

personal, household, community, national, and global levels, built on the premises of availability

of food, water, shelter conditions as well as the applications of social classes, race, and gender,

highly enables her argument against the idea that genetics, human behavior, and medicare are the

most prevalent determinants of health.

Works Referenced:
● Global Health and Global Health Ethics, edited by Solomon Benatar, and Gillian

Brock, Cambridge University Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central,

http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ucr/detail.action?docID=647365.

○ Created from ucr on 2021-10-08 05:48:54.