Determinants of Health
- Lynn N.
- Oct 16, 2018
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 16, 2018
The Canadian government defines determinants of health as a “broad range of personal, social, economic, and environmental factors that determine individual and population health” (Government of Canada, 2018). The main determinants of health include:
Income and social status
Education and literacy
Employment and working conditions
Childhood experiences
Physical environments
Social supports and coping skills
Healthy behaviours
Access to health services
Biology and genetic endowment
Gender
Culture
Within these determinants, there is a specific group of social and economic factors called social determinants of health that relate to a the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age. Even though Canada has free healthcare, there exists many health inequalities within the population. Health inequalities are the differences in the health status of individuals and groups. Within health inequalities, there are health inequity, which are health inequalities that are unfair or unjust (Government of Canada, 2018). Examples such as access to health programs in Northern regions of the country.
In 2011 at the World Conference on Social Determinants of Health, Canada along with many other countries pledged to the Rio Political Declaration on Social Determinants of Health. This declaration was a commitment to reduce health inequities by taking the necessary steps and implementing the proper programs. For Ontario, Public Health Ontario and the Ministry of Health and Long-term Care created the Ontario Public Health Standards to create a framework by which to help create public health programs and services to battle health inequities (MOHLTC, 2018). The standards state that public health programs and services should be focused on 4 domains:
Social determinants of health
Healthy behaviours
Healthy communities
Population health assessment
As well, the public health programs and services should reach all Ontarians, with a special focus on those at greater risk of poor health outcomes, such as seniors and Indigenous people.
As a radiation therapist, I work a lot with the aging population, and so I wanted to spend some time focusing on age as a social determinant of health. Below is a presentation that a classmate and I made providing some information on the vulnerabilities of seniors and the comparison between Alberta and Ontario.
Some difficult realities for seniors in Toronto are:
In 2013, people aged 51 and older comprised 29% of the homeless population
In 2012, 2 in 5 seniors in Toronto reported having some type of physical or mental disability
In 2016, 1 in 10 seniors suffered from some form of dementia, which is projected to increase over the next 20 years
It is estimated 20-30% of seniors fall each year and in 2004 it was estimated that hte direct costs associated with falls among seniors in Canada was to be over $2 billion (Fleiszer & Williams, 2017)
These are just to name a few statistics. It is safe to say that seniors are a vulnerable population and as the number of seniors continues to grow, we as a community and as a country have to adapt our public programs to help ease the inequity of seniors disproportionately suffering from adverse health conditions.
References
Fleiszer, P. & Williams, D. (2017). Healthy Aging in Toronto: The Health Status of Seniors.
Toronto Public Health. Retrieved from
Government of Canada. (2018). Social Determinants of Health and Health Inequalities.
Government of Canada. Retrieved from
Ministry of Health and Long-term Care. (2018). Protecting and Promoting the Health of
Ontarians. Ministry of Health and Long-term Care. Retrieved from http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/pro/programs/publichealth/oph_standards/docs/protocols_guidelines/Ontario_Public_Health_Standards_2018_en.pdf
World Health Organization. (2018). The Determinants of Health. Retrieved from
Comments