Social diversity and overview of

20th century environmental change

What is Social Diversity

 It means understanding that each individual is unique and recognizing our individual
differences
 These can be along the dimensions of race, ethnicity , gender , socio-economic status ,
physical and social environment.
 Social epidemiologists seeks to understand the ways in which social , cultural and
economic circumstances influence our chances for a heathy life.
 Further more they aim to identify social characteristics that effect the patterns of disease
and health distribution in society.
Social determinants of health

 Social determinants are the conditions in ones environment i.e where people born , live,
work and interact and huge impact on health.
 Socio-economic status , quality of education , access to health care resources and occupation
are the few social factors that make people susceptible to illness or health problems.
 Whether people are healthy or not and how disease pattern will b changed in community is
determined by the circumstances and environment.
 The distribution of social determinants are often shaped by public policies , distribution of
money , power and resources at global , national and local level.
 The World Health Organization says, ‘ This unequal distribution of health-damaging
experiences is not in any sense a ‘natural’ phenomenon but is the result of a toxic
combination of poor social policies , unfair economic arrangements and bad politics.
Socio-economic status

 Is a broad term that is used to describe factors about a person’s lifestyle including
occupation , income and education .
 A composite measure that typically incorporates economic , social ,and work status.
Economic status is measured by income . Social status is measured by education and work
place is measured by occupation.
 Poor social and economic status affect health throughout life. People further down the
social ladder usually run at least twice the risk of serious illness and premature death as
those near the top.
 People of different SES levels may have very different access to health care , healthy
food , and physical activity opportunities .
 Socio-economic status has been defined by

 Education
 Income
 Occupation
Education
Education is perhaps the most basis SES component since it shaped future occupational opportuinities and earning potential.
It also provides knowledge and life skills to allow better educated persons to gain more readily access to information and resources t
promote health.
Income
In addition to providing means purchasing health care , higher incomes can provide better nutrition , housing , schooling and recreat
Occupation
Complex variable .. People of community can b employed or unemployed. Threat of unemployment and job insecurity can effect he
as well. lower status jobs expose workers to both physical and pychosocial risks. They carry a higher risk of occupational injury and
exposure to toxic substances.
 Overview of 20th century Environmental
Change
 During 20th century , human activity began to dominate the world’s ecosystem in unprecedented manner. In late 1960’s
Rachel Carson warned that raid development and deployment of industrial chemicals in agriculture threatened the
entire food web and health of ecological system e.g The discovery of hole in stratosphere ozone layer related to using
CFC’s refrigerants shocked people into understanding that we are capable of destroying planetary control mechanism.
 Climate instability with periods of extreme heat , degraded soil , air, water quality and loss of biodiversity and
ecosystem services collectively increase the risk of a number of diseases.
 Economic inequalities and disparities in health care access put poor , unempowered people at greater risk for both
chronic illness and environmental threats.
 During 20th century as infectious diseases were better controlled through public health measures and medical advances
how disease pattern developed related to changes in activities , diet , work housing , exposure to environmental
contaminants and social organization.
 The pervasive spread of synthetic chemicals contaminate every ecosystem in world virtually all people and wild life
regularly exposed to a complex mixture of industrial chemical even are now born having already been exposed to
industrial chemicals in the womb.