Systematic Review of Social Determinants of Health

Abstract

The paper was a systematic review of social determinants of health. There are five social determinants of health. They include economic stability, education access, and quality, health care access and quality, neighborhood and built environment, and social and community context. It is obvious that relative poverty and social capital will, in one way or another, give rise to the resilience needed for an individual to feel good about themselves and age successfully. A healthy community's support and lifestyle decisions will lessen susceptibility to unhealthy behaviours. As the person moves into the working community, upstream support from family, schools, and community networks is crucial for fostering psychological well-being and self-esteem. Physicians and other medical practitioners can better support patients faced with social challenges by asking about their social history, providing them with advice, referring them to local support services, facilitating access to these services, and acting as reliable resource persons throughout the process. Training physicians, nurses, and other allied health workers to address the social determinants of health is considered one of the key principles for promoting more equitable health outcomes for patients, families, and communities. Physicians can conduct locally relevant research and use social determinants data to better intervene in their context and generate evidence as a lever for advocacy. They can create their organizations to defend humanitarian causes ranging from refugee care to climate change, and they can ensure that the health system is “part of the solution,” for instance, by purchasing surgical instruments that are not produced using child labour or by challenging patent laws that restrict access to life-saving medicines for the world’s population.