Social Determinants Of Health Essay Example

Focusing solely on the map and two graphs that contain data for Colorado, the most feasible research proposal to develop would be one that answers the question “is there a correlation between health, level of income, and the prevalence of cardiovascular disease among various population based on income groups in Colorado”. When developing a research question, narrowing it down based on several criteria is among the hardest steps to accomplish.
However, this was made easier in this case thanks to the defined availability of data. So far, three groups of data were already available and so the most sensible option was to develop a research question out of these three data groups. The research framework that would most likely be applied in the proposed research would be based on the hypothesis that suggests that there is indeed a correlation between health, level of income, and the prevalence of cardiovascular disease among various income-based population groups in Colorado. To specify, the expectation would be that cardiovascular disease prevalence rates would be higher among people belonging to lower income age groups than those who belong to the higher ones. To specify the theoretical framework that will be used, it would be the socio-ecological model. Using this framework, we will be able to describe the dynamic interrelations between various personal and environmental factors in relation to a dependent variable. In this case, that dependent variable would be cardiovascular disease prevalence rate. The personal and environmental factors would be income groups or levels, and where exactly a population group resides.
The level of income group where a population belongs to would be the social determinant of health (SDOH) in this case. There are two types of variables that should be clearly defined in every study: the independent and dependent variables. This is often discussed in research and theoretical framework sections of research proposals. In this case, the independent variables would be 1) the overall health and level of income of the target population. The dependent variable, on the other hand, would be 1) the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases among the members of the target population. This follows the socio-ecological framework focusing on personal and environmental factors.
Additional data may of course be collected in order to specify certain details about the study. One data group that can be used, for example, would be the prevalence rate of various cardiovascular diseases for each income-based population group in Colorado. This is a more refined data set because it not only determines which income-based population groups are more prone to cardiovascular diseases, it also shows what exact cardiovascular diseases are most commonly occurring among the already stratified (based on income groups) samples. The research paper has to include all the pertinent variables; this is why the best choice would be to include the entire state of Colorado as the geographical focus of the study, although this may not be always viable especially for smaller and less financially capable researcher groups and organizations.
There are numerous ways how data can be collected in such a way that would lead to a systematic answer to the research question. One of the most viable ways is to randomly recruit a certain number of people for each income group (as indicated in the available data from Colorado). The size can vary but for starters, some 50 people for each income group would be a good start. In terms of age, the respondents should more between 50 to 60 years old so that there is already a good chance that they have a certain form of cardiovascular disease. The research should then proceed by determining how many of those randomly selected people, for each income group, have been diagnosed with a certain form of cardiovascular disease. The fact that the respondents were randomly selected means that every person belonging to a certain income group had an equal chance of getting selected for the study. This is what makes the study reliable. Additionally, the bigger the size of the sample population is, the higher the level of external reliability of the results and findings of the research would be. Most importantly, this method of data collection directly addresses the research question involving Colorado and the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases among various population groups based on their level of income.
Another way to collect data is to base it on geographical location. Colorado is a huge place especially for some researcher groups who do not have the resources and manpower to carry out an SDOH-related study. The ideal strategy to address this dilemma is to narrow down the research. Colorado is composed of various counties and so smaller researcher groups may want to focus on a per-country study. The same goes for other smaller researcher groups. In the end, when the results of their respective studies get collated, they would still be able to answer the main research question—prevalence of cardiovascular diseases on various population groups in Colorado, based on their level of income.
There are many factors and variables that may affect an individual’s likelihood of contracting a certain disease. As described in the lessons presented in class, there are communicable and non-communicable diseases. Stress-related diseases are often non-communicable. This question is more entered on the effects of psychosocial stressors in a person’s physical and mental health. Most of the time, diseases that are developed as a result of overexposure to psychosocial stressors are the non-communicable ones (NCDs). The more stressors an individual faces, the more likely that he would have a less desirable level of physical and mental health.
The body has an immune system. It is its natural line of defense against foreign bodies that may harm the body; examples would be viruses, bacteria, and etc. Unfortunately, the immune system can only do so much. For instance, it can only defend the body up to a certain extent from viruses and bacteria. At some point, it would give in. The immune system does not make the body immune to say, non-physical entities such as emotional, social, and psychological problems—these are what can be classified as stressors. There is an abundance of researches published about the effects of these stressors on the body’s ability to contract and combat diseases and generally, the consensus is that the more exposed an individual is to these stressors, the more likely he is to contract diseases such as cardiovascular conditions in this case.
It is important to note that stressors have the tendency to wear down otherwise effective immune responses. This is what makes the body vulnerable to infectious diseases as well. So at some point, it would be accurate to say that the proliferation of infectious diseases is one of the many secondary effects of stressors. But still, from a purely technical perspective, stress-related diseases are non-communicable.
Focusing on income groups, for example, it can be argued that people in the low and high income group roughly have the same level of psychosocial stress. What makes these two populations different is the specific set of stressors that they face. For those in the low income groups, for example, they are more concerned about where they are going to get the resources to finance a healthier, sustainable, and financially stable life. This, in itself, can already pose as a psychosocial stressor. For people who belong to high income groups, on the other hand, work and or business-related variables may comprise bulk of their psychosocial stressor workload. In terms of the volume of stressors they face, it would be safe to hypothesize that they are roughly the same across all groups and that the real difference can be observed in the nature of those stressors.
The same principle can be applied when gender becomes the focus—that is, they roughly have the same load of psychosocial stressors (i.e. males and females) but the nature of those stressors would most likely be unique for each gender-based group. The contexts may dramatically change, however, when other factors such as race and ethnicity becomes emphasized. Within the United States, for example, members of cultural and ethnic minorities tend to be more exposed to a larger number of psychosocial stressors compared to members of the cultural majorities. This means that if one is to follow the pathway laid out by the research hypothesis that was set earlier, members of the cultural minority would turn out to be more prone to the health and wellness-related consequences of psychosocial stressors.