Social Determinants/Context of Health

Abstract

This chapter discusses the various social factors which determine human health. In the preceding chapter, the roles of some social factors in health and illness behaviour were discussed. This chapter provides an elaboration of the social determinants of health (SDH), dwelling more on how social factors interact to produce health or illness. The notion that health has a social context is traced to the father of western medicine, Hippocrates (460 BC–370 BC). The notion of social aetiology of health or illness is synonymous with the consideration of social factors in human health and illness. Therefore, SDH refers to the full set of social conditions and characteristics within which living and working take place, which invariably account for human health. The idea of differential social positions and conditions is summed as SDH because these factors lead to differential disease exposure and vulnerability and consequences of health conditions. The social determinants examined include gender inequality, socioeconomic status, education and health literacy, living conditions/housing, individual behaviour and lifestyle factors, employment or occupation, social alienation and discrimination, and access to health care. The crux of this chapter is the detailed explanation and provision of basic frameworks to explain how the social factors function in the determination of human health. Relevant specific situations from African contexts are provided to elaborate the points.