Determinants of Health and Health Inequities

The Government of Canada (2018) lists the determinants of health as; “income and social status, employment and working conditions, education and literacy, childhood experiences, physical environments, social supports and coping skills, healthy behaviours, access to health services, biology and genetic endowment, gender, and culture” (para. 2). Every factor in our lives, from where we live, our family and friends, how we were brought up, our schooling, our work, our memories, our lifestyle, everything is a determinant of our health and how we cope with illness.

In Quebec, the ministry uses the World Health Organization (WHO) definition, “The social determinants of health are the circumstances in which people are born, grow up, live, work and age, and the systems put in place to deal with illness. These circumstances are in turn shaped by a wider set of forces: economics, social policies, and politics” (World

Health Organization’s Commission on Social Determinants of Health [CSDH WHO], 2016 as cited in Institut National de Santé Publique, 2017, p. 3).

Health inequities, on the other hand, are imbalanced differences in health between individuals or groups that are unjust and can be modified. They stem from social and political conditions and as such, are preventable. (Government of Canada, 2018; Institut National de Santé Publique, 2017). It is incumbent on our governments; federal, provincial and territorial, to address these inequities through political action and changes in health policies.

In Quebec, our ministry of health realizes that health inequities must be tacked across the health gradient in order to be truly effective. Presently our interventions are focused on disadvantaged groups, and while this is very important, it does not address the deeper social structural inequities. Further, making health policies that concentrate on these disadvantaged groups may have inverse consequences such as; “stigmatizing targeted populations… legitimizing economic disadvantage… neglecting people who are hidden in average data” (Institut National de Santé Publique, 2016, p. 3). While continuing to make targeted policies and programs for our most underprivileged, we must also make better universal health policies that concentrate on society as a whole, regardless of social or economic status.

Elizabeth

References

Government of Canada. (2018). Social determinants of health and health inequalities. Retrieved from the Government of Canada website https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/health-promotion/population-health/what-determines-health.html

Institut National de Santé Publique. (2016). Policy approaches to reducing health inequalities. Retrieved from the Government of Quebec website http://www.ncchpp.ca/docs/2016_Ineg_Ineq_ApprochesPPInegalites_En.pdf

Institut National de Santé Publique. (2017). Policy approaches to reducing health inequalities: Social determinants of health and of health inequalities. Retrieved from the Government of Quebec website http://www.ncchpp.ca/docs/2017_Ineg_Ineq_SDOH_SDOHI_En.pdf