Social Determinants of Health
Abstract
The paper will discuss various social determinants of health and how advanced practice nurses can be instrumental in improving health outcomes in vulnerable populations. Namely, the paper will answer the following
questions: 1) In what ways are various economic, cultural, social, and political factors influential in determining how individuals’ health is affected? 2) How do health policies and the policy process impact vulnerable populations and health outcomes? 3) What role can advanced practice nurses play in improving health outcomes in vulnerable populations?
Keywords: social determinants of health, advanced practice nurse, health outcomes, health policy, vulnerable populations.
Social Determinants of Health
The improvement of health in the United States has been connected to the US healthcare system and its reforms. Even though the access to healthcare has been improved greatly with the help of various reforms, such
as the Affordable Care Act, vulnerable populations still depend on numerous factors in their access to healthcare services. Those factors are called social determinants of health (SDOH) and they are “distal determinants
(political, legal, institutional, and cultural) and proximal determinants (socioeconomic status, physical environment, living and working conditions, family and social network, lifestyle or behavior, and demographics)” (Shi & Tsai & Kao, 2009, p. 44). Fundamentally, SDOH are the conditions in which people are born and raised and in which they live, work, raise their own children and grow old. Social determinants of health help to define the vulnerability of a population, because they are associated with people’s financial, social and healthcare challenges and impact their health outcomes and their quality of life. The purpose of the paper is to discuss
social determinants of health in vulnerable populations, to indicate how economic, cultural, social and political factors influence individuals’ health, to speak about health policies that impact vulnerable populations
and to mention the role, which advanced practice nurses play in improving health outcomes in vulnerable populations in America.
Vulnerable Populations in the United States
Today, many Americans continue to face health disparities and the lack of opportunities to be healthy. Those Americans are classified as vulnerable populations. According to Alexander, Johnson-Mallard, Kostas-
Polston, Fogel and Woods (2017), vulnerable …
