Poverty and Inadequate Living Conditions and Healthcare Essay

Where and how populations live (geographic), the traits and changes they exhibit (demographics), and cultural background/perspectives/beliefs (psychographics) directly impact the healthcare system. Social determinants are the key drivers behind all population trends. Social determinants of health that have negative consequences range from chronic stress to poor nutrition to poverty and inadequate living conditions. Where these determinants are a factor, chronic conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and asthma are more prevalent.Poverty andInadequate Living Conditions and Healthcare Essay

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Poor Living Conditions Affects Children While most people live their day to day life, there are some children living in poverty. Living in these types of living conditions can influence the mental health of a child. Children living in poor quality environments can be a lasting effect on their life. Adults are often affected by poor living conditions because of the financial strain on them; not being able to provide for their families. Children will be affected differently than adults; kids are easily influenced until they reach adulthood. Of course, children learn how to act and behave form where they grew up. Poverty and Inadequate Living Conditions and Healthcare Essay
Although, it is the only escape from poverty it is still hard to want to be around peers that don’t seem to struggle. Children can become disconnected from wanting to learn with the stress from what is going on at home. For example, a child in middle school that is poor have to deal with the pressure of being teased and taunted about what they wear or what they have. This can make a child not want to attend school and withdraw themselves from their outside world. Their outside world is considered outside of their community. That same middle school student feels safe there because no one is above them; everyone one is considered equal because they are all poor. Lee and Burkman found that most American students who start school significantly behind their peers can never close the readiness gap.Poverty and Inadequate Living Conditions and Healthcare Essay

IntroductionOver the past quarter century there has been a growing body of support for the importance of understanding the relationship between poor living conditions and ill-health. These conditions have been referred to as the social determinants of health. There has been a strong push amongst policy makers to study the non-medical determinants of health as opposed to the traditional narrow way of thinking with regards to medical treatments or lifestyle choices (Mikkonen, Raphael 2010). Income and income distribution is thought to be the most important of the social determinants of health because it further influences other social determinants of health for example, low-income families are forced to live under circumstances of material and social deprivation which make it very difficult for families to be able to afford the basic necessities of life such as food, clothing and housing (Kekkonen, Raphael 2010). Studies have shown that suicide rates and the onset of many diseases such as diabetes and heart disease is significantly more prevalent amongst low income Canadians than there more affluent counter-parts. One policy that has often been implemented by governments as a means to alleviate poverty and to increase income equality is the minimum wage policy. There has been an ongoing debate over whether increasing the minimum wage is an effective policy to alleviate poverty in society and provide a more equal distribution of wealth or, if it has further negative implications on the working poor due to the effects that minimum wage policies have on employment and the job market. This paper will explore the historical background of the minimum wage and discuss the reasons for its establishment. Poverty and Inadequate Living Conditions and Healthcare Essay

…inimum wages when set to meet or exceed Statistics Canada’s Low Income Cut-Off can help ensure that all workers receive at least a fair and just wage for their labour (Goldberg, green 1999). One’s level of income determines their overall living conditions and this determines a number of other social determinants of health such as food security or housing. Inappropriate minimum wages and income inequalities lead to material and social deprivation which further leads to poor health because the basic needs for health such as food, clothing and housing cannot be afforded. Policies to reduce poverty such as increasing minimum wages appropriately to meet the true costs of living needs to be addressed by governments and policy makers immediately and this will also help to alleviate cost pressures on our healthcare system (Raphael, Mikkonen).

Poverty is a major cause of ill health and a barrier to accessing health care when needed. This relationship is financial: the poor cannot afford to purchase those things that are needed for good health, including sufficient quantities of quality food and health care. But, the relationship is also related to other factors related to poverty, such as lack of information on appropriate health-promoting practices or lack of voice needed to make social services work for them.Poverty and Inadequate Living Conditions and Healthcare Essay

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Ill health, in turn, is a major cause of poverty. This is partly due to the costs of seeking health care, which include not only out-of-pocket spending on care (such as consultations, tests and medicine), but also transportation costs and any informal payments to providers. It is also due to the considerable loss of income associated with illness in developing countries, both of the breadwinner, but also of family members who may be obliged to stop working or attending school to take care of an ill relative. In addition, poor families coping with illness might be forced to sell assets to cover medical expenses, borrow at high interest rates or become indebted to the community.

Strong health systems improve the health status of the whole population, but especially of the poor among whom ill health and poor access to health care tends to be concentrated, as well as protect households from the potentially catastrophic effects of out-of-pocket health care costs. In general, poor health is disproportionately concentrated among the poor.Poverty and Inadequate Living Conditions and Healthcare Essay

Strategy

The World Bank’s work in the area of health equity and financial protection is defined by the 2007 Health, Nutrition and Population Strategy. The strategy identifies “preventing poverty due to illness (by improving financial protection)” as one of its four strategic objectives and commits the Bank’s health team, both through its analytical work and its regional operations, to addressing vulnerability that arises from health shocks.

The strategy also stresses the importance of equity in health outcomes in a second strategic objective to “improve the level and distribution of key health, nutrition and population outcomes… particularly for the poor and the vulnerable”.Poverty and Inadequate Living Conditions and Healthcare Essay

The Bank supports governments to implement a variety of policies and programs to reduce inequalities in health outcomes and enhance financial protection. Generally, this involves mechanisms that help overcome geographic, social and psychological barriers to accessing care and reducing out-of-pocket cost of treatment. Examples include:

Reducing the direct cost of care at the point of service, e.g. through reducing/abolishing user fees for the poor or expanding health insurance to the poor (including coverage, depth and breadth).Poverty and Inadequate Living Conditions and Healthcare Essay
Increasing efficiency of care to reduce total consumption of care, e.g. by limiting “irrational drug prescribing,” strengthening the referral system, or improving the quality of providers (especially at the lower level).
Reducing inequalities in determinants of health status or health care utilization, such as reducing distance (through providing services closer to the poor), subsidizing travel costs, targeted health promotion, conditional cash transfers.
Expanding access to care by using the private sector or public-private partnerships.
The Bank’s health team also promotes the monitoring of equity and financial protection by publishing global statistics on inequalities in health status, access to care and financial protection, as well as training government officials, policymakers and researchers in how to measure and monitor the same.

Results

Examples of how World Bank projects have improved health coverage for the poor and reduced financial vulnerability include:Poverty and Inadequate Living Conditions and Healthcare Essay

The Rajasthan Health Systems Development Projectresulted in improved access to care for vulnerable Indians. The share of below-poverty line Indians in the overall inpatient and outpatient load at secondary facilities more than doubled between 2006 and 2011, well exceeding targets. In the same period, the share of the vulnerable tribal populations in the overall patient composition tripled.

The Georgia Health Sector Development Project supported the government of Georgia in implementing the Medical Insurance Program for the Poor, effectively increasing the share of the government health expenditure earmarked for the poor from 4% in 2006 to 38% in 2011. It also increased the number of health care visits of both the general population and the poor, but by more for the poor (from 2 per capita per year to 2.6) than for the general population (from 2 to 2.3) over the same time period.

The Mekong Regional Health Support Project helped the government of Vietnam to increase access to (government) health insurance from 29% to 94% among the poor, as well as from 7% to 68% among the near-poor. Hospitalization and consultation rates, at government facilities, also increased among both the poor and near-poo Poverty and Inadequate Living Conditions and Healthcare Essay