Question

This week's discussion is on the Social Determinants of Health and Healthy cities.

Think about the town or city where you live

1. How ‘healthy’ is your city/town and why do you think this?
2. What are the connections between your town/city and social determinants of health such as poverty, education, violence and so forth?
3. What policies need to change to make your city/town more healthy
4. What do you think about Evelyne's point about not calling physical isolation 'social distancing'?

Answer 1

Ans) 1) The village people get better quality foods. Obviously no not obviously they think the city life is better,though villages have much less amenities to live in,anyhow they manage it by short living in the cities. They can feel and touch the Nature,which keeps people both mentally and physically healthy.

2) Social determinants of health represent the remaining three categories of social environment, physical environment/total ecology, and health services/medical care. These social determinants of health also interact with and influence individual behaviors as well.

- The consistency and reproducibility of strong associations between social (including socioeconomic) factors and a multitude of health outcomes in diverse settings and populations have been well documented, and the biological plausibility of the influence of social factors on health has been established. It is not surprising that exceptional examples of health indicators, settings, and subgroups in which health does not necessarily improve with greater social advantage can be found. There may be thresholds above which a higher degree of a given social factor (e.g., income) no longer yields better health. Exceptions would also be expected as the effects of any given factor are contingent upon the presence of myriad other factors—social, economic, psychological, environmental, genetic, and epigenetic. Considering the long, complex causal pathways leading from social factors—particularly upstream ones such as income and education—to health, with opportunities for countless interactions at each step, it is indeed remarkable that there are so few exceptions to the general rule.

- The relative importance of social vs. genetic factors is often debated. The emerging awareness of gene-environment interactions, however, has drastically altered nature-vs.-nurture debates. Social and genetic causes of disease can no longer be seen as mutually exclusive. We now know that adverse genetic endowment is not necessarily unalterable, that a “bad” (or “good”) gene may be expressed only in the presence of triggers in the social or physical environment, and that these environments potentially can be modified by social policies.

3) Ways to Create Healthier Cities
- Alternative modes of transportation: biking saves money, time, and the environment.
- Less cars and more trees to improve air quality.
- Creating abundant shared outdoor spaces motivates physical activity.
- Increasing accessibility to clean water.
- Support local farms.
- Treating violence as a public health concern.

4) WorkWork from home, don’t meet in person – or if you must get together, keep your social distance! As we increase our efforts to fend off the spread of the COVID-19, we need to watch that we aren’t worsening another threat to public health: loneliness.