Inequalities in Health and Social Care - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages Scully, J. & Borrill, C. 2004). The poorest of the poor worldwide are known to have the worst health. Research has shown that in general, the lower the socioeconomic status of an individual, the worse his or her health. Generally, in health, there is a social gradient running from the top down the ladder of the social economic spectrum. It is a world phenomenon, often seen in high, middle, and low income countries. The existence of social gradient or social inequalities in health implies that health inequalities affect everyone. The social determinants of health entail the circumstances through which people are born, live, age, work, grow up and the system adopted to deal with illness (Asplin, BR. Rhodes KV. & Levy, H. 2005). All these circumstances are then shaped by a whole set of forces including social policies, politics and economics. This paper is a report on inequalities in health and social care which provides explanations for difficulties of measurement while focusing upon two social variables (gender and ethnicity). It cuts across the theoretical argument for the existence of their inequalities while analyzing the findings of sociological research into inequality in cancer care provision, in gender and ethnicity. The report, as well discusses the problems in the measurement of inequality in gender and ethnicity while taking into consideration the practical problems associated with creating valid data in cancer health care provisions. Additionally, the report would discuss the sociological explanations that explain the inequalities in health which entail the Materialist, Social Selection and Cultural/Behavioral. The Marxist, Pluralist and Structuralism explanations of power, for the competing groups will take a center stage in this report. Cervical, breast and the endometrial cancers are the global paradigms for health disparities. The paucity of used and well-designed cancer registries tend to obstruct accurate planning and assessment for allocation of resources in the international agency. Increasing rates of smoking and obesity among resource poor nations leads to increases in the cancer incidences of cancers (Ayanian, JZ. Weissman, JS. & Zaslavsky AM. 2000). Women who reside in the developing world present in later stages of cancer disease and tend to have fewer choices for treatment relative to those in developed countries. Poor health in countries and between different countries is largely due to unequal distributions in goods and services, power, and income, which result from poor social policies, dirty politics and the unfair economic arrangements. It is the actual downstream effect of the social policies such as clean water, shelter, literacy, nutritious food, sanitation, meaningful work, and health care that act in a synergistic way alongside genetics in determining the life expectancy of populations. With respect to financial and access, the systems of health care themselves are social determinants of the individual health. Research shows that currently only about 7% of the global spending for cancer goes towards the developing nations. Evidences for existence of inequalities in cancer care provision. The survival of cancer patients varies depending on the socioeconomic group. Studies documented by 1995 displayed ...Download file to see next pagesRead More