Question

Political activities in a country affect peoples.' health.Justify with necessary examples

Answer 1

Answer:

Effect of politics and policies on socioeconomic health inequalities

The amount of scientific literature on social inequalities in health has increased exponentially in recent years. However, the effect of politics and policies on health and on social inequalities in health has rarely been studied. Navarro et al1,2 proposed a multidimensional conceptual framework that has been used to understand the relationship between politics and health outcomes (fig 11).). It is a schematic attempt to show how politics (expressed in terms of electoral behaviour and trade union characteristics) is related to expansion of the welfare state, in turn reflecting the degree to which societies take care of their citizens,3 and labour market policies. The welfare state and labour market policies have an effect on income and social inequalities in the population. As fig 11 shows, all these policies and factors are related to health and inequalities in health.

figure ch59063.f1

Figure 1 Model showing the relationship between power resources, labour market, welfare state, socioeconomic inequalities and health outcomes (some examples of variables are also shown). Source: Navarro et al.1 GDP, gross domestic product.

Several authors have described typologies of welfare regimes in wealthy countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.4,5 Navarro et al1,6 have considered four types of countries based on the typology of Huber and Stephens.5 First, social democratic countries (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Austria) have been governed (either alone or as the major party in a coalition) by social democratic parties for long periods of time during the second part of the 20th century and where unions are strong. These countries are characterised by the universality of benefits, a large social public expenditure (including healthcare), extensive welfare with generous entitlements, a heavy emphasis on public provision of social services and on redistribution through the tax and transfer system. The participation of women in the labour force is high. The redistributive policies imply smaller economic inequalities. Second, Christian democratic countries (Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland) have been governed by parties based on the Christian tradition and have a more heterogeneous class base. They also construct large welfare states, with generous entitlements based mainly on transfers, but a reluctance to provide public social services. The family, and mainly the women, are supposed to provide social services

Answer 2

Politics, economics, and public policy all have a role in population health.

Explanation:

• We know that persons who lose their jobs and have lower incomes have a higher death rate; however, this does not imply that populations with more unemployment or lower mean incomes have a higher mortality rate.

• It is consequently critical to comprehend population health at the social level by taking into account the whole context in which populations live.

• Among high-income nations, those that have adopted more neoliberal approaches to economic policy have been shown to have poorer health inequities and higher death rates.