Social

factors
Elaboration Examples/Statistics
Diet Definition: Food and drink that individuals
consume.

Poor diets; lack/excess of certain nutrients
Malnutrition Body does not get
sufficient or balanced amount of nutrients it
needs to maintain healthy tissues and organ
functions.

Excessive consumption of nutrients stored
as body fats obesity

Lifestyle
choices
Definition: include their habits, attitudes
and activities.

Healthy lifestyle choices reduce burden of
diseases and maintain a high quality of life;
reducing risk of many diseases such as heart
disease, diabetes and depression.

Education Definition: process of teaching and learning,
often within context of formal institutions
such as a school or university.

-Positive relationship between education
and health.
- More informed on how to lead a healthy
lifestyle
- Earn higher incomes greater access to
quality medical treatment, food and living
conditions
- Women more informed of nutrition and
health healthier, and also able to care and
provide for children more effectively
improving childrens health IMR lower.
(Therefore, improvement in womans level
of education is crucial)









Economic Factors Elaboration Examples/Statistics
Poverty and
Affluence
Poverty: condition experienced by
people who have a shortage of financial
and other material resources.

How does it cause health problems?
- limits purchasing power that people
have to afford basic health care.
- more exposed to health risks because
of poor quality housing and insufficient
nutrition.

- Children most vulnerable to health
problems caused by poverty.
- More prone to nutrition-related
diseases such as kwashiorkor.
- Rarely given vaccinationa medication
that helps protect against a disease.

Affluence: having an abundant supply of
money, property and other material
goods.

How does it decrease health problems?
- provides people with greater access to
food and better quality health
services increase resistance to
diseases; improving ability to deal with
diseases
- ppl with higher income can choose to
adopt healthy diets and consult well
trained health care professionals.
World Bank:
International poverty lines:
1. US$1.25 a day
national poverty line
of worlds poorest
countries extreme
poverty (1.2 billion
ppl)
2. US$2 a day
median poverty of all
LDCs

WHO:
Study in 2008:
Even in DCs such as United
Kingdom, the poorer the
individual, the worse the
health of the individual tends
to be.
Investment in
healthcare and
access to health
services
Investment in health care: resources
devoted by governments, businesses or
individuals for the purposes of
addressing the health and medical
needs of a population.
Access to health services: peoples
ability to obtain services of
organisations and facilities whose main
aim is to maintain and improve health.


Investment in health care
Government:
- money that a government uses to build
and maintain hospitals; train and hire
staff; purchase medicine and medical


equipment
Private sector such as from business