Module Components

• Overview

Topics

• Definitions
• Social Determinants of Health
• Health Disparities
• Social Justice and Ethics
• Role of the Public Health Nurse

Nurs 467 - Community / Public Health Nursing

Module 2: Foundational Concepts: Social Determinants, Social Justice and Ethics

Definitions

Determinants of Health: The range of personal (biological), social, economic, and environmental factors that influence health status (HP2020).

Health disparities: A difference or inequality in health status, such as difference in life expectancy, mortality or morbidity.

Health care disparities: Racial or ethnic difference in the quality of health care that is not due to health care access, clinical differences, patient preferences, or appropriateness of intervention (Smedley et al., 2003).

Health equity: The absence of systematic disparities in health between social groups who have different levels of social advantage.

Health inequity/inequality: Disparities in health (or health care) that are systematic and avoidable, and are therefore unjust.

Social Determinants of Health: The conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, including the health system. These circumstances are shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources at global, national and local levels (WHO, 2008).

Social justice: The equitable sharing of both the common burdens and the common benefits or advantages in society. A value system in which health care is a right and achieving health equity and population health are priority goals (Adapted from Allender et al., 2010).

Socioeconomic gradient of health: The inverse relationship between income (social class) and health. The difference between high and low social and economic groups can be viewed as a disparity in health outcomes (Allender et al., 2010).