Content area
Full Text
Social determinants of health: The solid facts, 2nd ed. Richard Wilkinson & Michael Marmot, editors (World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen, Denmark) 2003. 31 pages. Price: Sw.fr. 15.00/US $ 13.50; in developing countries: Sw.fr. 10.50 ISBN 92-890-1371-0
Health is an important indicator of quality of life and the most critical factor of human resource development, thereby implying its economic value. However, until recently, there has been a strong notion that its determinants associate with affluence and particular practices, i.e., affordability to take care of one's health and related behaviours. The ill-health and or causes of a disease have been seen predominantly through clinical explanations, genetic susceptibility, nutritional status, and environmental effects.
The new knowledge and growing understanding that health is sensitive to social environment or there are social determinants of health, has given a new dimension to health policies and programmes, particularly in progressive nations. There is scientific evidence based on several thousand research reports (including that of prospective studies of several thousand subjects, followed up from birth to over decades) to corroborate that even in developed nations the people who are not well off have shorter life expectancies and more illnesses than the better off people. Some serious diseases could be controlled and related illnesses treated with the help of medical interventions and the survival prolonged. But adverse socio-economic conditions make people ill and suffer. Their access to medical care and affordability are deterred by social determinants of health.