5) - Identify the factor which affect the social health from above picture.
Answers
Explanation:
The previous chapters of this report focused on health systems and individual and household-level risks that might explain the U.S. health disadvantage, but it has been increasingly recognized that these health determinants cannot be fully understood (or influenced) in isolation from the environmental contexts that shape and sustain them. In contrast with traditional environmental health approaches that focus primarily on toxic substances in air, water, and soil, this more recent approach conceptualizes the environment more broadly to encompass a range of human-made physical and social features that are affected by public policy (Frumkin, 2005). These economic, social, urban or rural, transportation, and other policies that affect the environment were not traditionally thought of as relevant to health policy but are now attracting greater attention because decision makers are beginning to recognize their health implications (Cole and Fielding, 2007).
By definition, environmental factors affect large groups that share common living or working spaces. Thus, they are key candidates as explanatory factors for health differences across geographic areas, such as countries. Indeed, a major motivation for the research on environmental determinants of health has been the repeated observation that many health outcomes are spatially patterned. These patterns are present across countries and across regions within countries, as well as at smaller scales, such as across urban neighborhoods (Center on Human Needs, 2012b; Kawachi and Subramanian, 2007). Strong spatial variation is present for a large range of
health outcomes, including many of the outcomes for which there are cross-national health differences, such as noncommunicable diseases, associated risk factors, injuries, and violence.
Understanding the reasons for the spatial patterns of health within countries may shed light on environmental factors that may contribute to differences across countries. Several factors may explain the strong spatial patterns that are observed within countries. A key contender is the spatial sorting of people based on their socioeconomic position, race, or ethnicity. However, evidence suggests that regional and neighborhood differences in health persist even after adjusting for these socioeconomic and demographic factors (Diez Roux and Mair, 2010; Mair et al., 2008; Paczkowski and Galea, 2010; Pickett and Pearl, 2001). This evidence suggests that broad environmental factors may play an important role in health. Moreover, environmental factors linked to space and place may in turn contribute to and reinforce socioeconomic and racial or ethnic health disparities (Bleich et al., 2012; Laveist et al., 2011). Thus, individual and environmental factors may be part of a reinforcing cycle that creates and perpetuates health differences. These reinforcing processes by which environmental factors and individual-, family-, and community-level factors reinforce each other over time may also play an important role in generating cross-national differences in health.
This chapter focuses on both the physical and social environment in the United States as potential contributors to its health disadvantage relative to other high-income countries.