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What Are the Social Determinants of Health

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What are social determinants of health? How do social determinants of health contribute to the development of illness?
What is a communicable disease chain?
Are there steps that a nurse can take to break a link within the communicable disease chain? Give a specific example.
Readings within your text covering international/global health and the following websites will assist you in answering these questions: 1. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Global Health website: http://www.cdc.gov/cogh/index.htm 2. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Global Health website: http://www.globalhealth.gov/index.html 3. Families USA - Why Global Health Matters—Here and Abroad website: http://www.familiesusa.org/ 4. World Health Organization (WHO) website: http://www.who.int

The social determinants of health are defined as the circumstances in which people are born, grow up, live, work, and age, as well as the systems put in place to deal with illness. (WHO, 2008). An individual born into poverty may be exposed to poor sanitation, little or no available medical care, no education, and no pre-natal care. The determinants of early childhood death can be correlated to a lack of pre-natal care. The social determinants related to work are the kind of work, the health or safety risks involved in performing the work, and the wages that allow a person to sustain themselves in housing, healthcare and food are also part of the picture.
As little as a few miles can make the difference between a life expectancy of 59 years and 82 years. The poorest can have the highest under-five mortality rates and the wealthiest the lowest under-five mortality rates (WHO, 2008).
Genes and age are a small part of a persons, or populations overall health. A larger influence comes health behaviors such as tobacco use, or drug addiction. Social

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