Social Determinants of Health and their Impact on Patient's Health (Essay Sample)

Social Determinants
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Institution Affiliation
Introduction
The ability of an individual to attain positive health is determined by social determinates of health. These include economic stability, education, social and community context, health and healthcare, neighbourhood and built environment. Health starts at the places of residence of individuals, their workplaces, learning entities, and communities. The health of individuals is determined partly by the ability to take care of themselves, including eating healthy, accessing medical services, and having economic stability to access medication, among others. Social determinates, therefore, play a key role in enhancing overall positive health of individuals. This paper will reflect on a comprehensive health assessment for a patient to assess her health status as dictated by her social determinants.
The four evidence-based interview techniques applied during the comprehensive health assessment in the determination of the patient social determinants included nonverbal communication, active listening, adaptive questioning and partnering, and summarisation. Active listening gives more confidence to the patient to give more information regarding their social determinants of health. Additionally, more information from the patient was attained through reading the non-verbal cues. These approaches also enabled for confirmation with the patient whether the information provided is accurate and to ensure that the patient was listening. 
The second question involved asking the patient if she had a stable income. The rationality of this question was to determine her food security, housing stability and the poverty level. The patient responded that she is employed as a full-time registered nurse. The basis for seeking the education level of the patient was to determine whether she can attain stable employment and educator for her entire family. The patient reported that she has an associate’s degree in nursing and she can access educational materials at ease. The other question related to whether the patient had access to health and medical care. The rationale for this question was to determined if the patient had access to health education, can access health care and primary care. The patient responded that she has access to health insurance offered by her employer. In regards to the neighbourhood and built environment of the patient, she indicated that she lives in a middle-class rural area with a low crime rate. She also feels safe inside and outside the house. The interviewer wanted to know if the patient faces any form of social and community abuse to determine her social cohesion and civil participation as well as discrimination and incarceration. The patient responded that she has not experienced any form of verbal or physical abuse. In addition, the patient indicated that she received family and friends support. These answers given by the patient informed the plan of care as it dictated the intervention taken to address the limitation pointed out by the patient.
The patient’s economic stability affects her access to healthcare. The socio-economic status of the patient determines the health facilities which she will visit to attain medical care. Her employment status will dictate where she lives, the type of food she eats and her mode of transport. The patient’s economic stability will determine the quality of care she receives in a healthcare setting. The educational status of the patient will inform her ability to access health. For instance, an educated person will most likely keep away from social practices that negates with the overall quality of care in comparison to uneducated personCITATION Mar181 \l 2057 (Marmot, 2018). The patient has an associate’s degree and therefore, will most likely be dedicated to improvement of her overall health. She has several opportunities attributed to her education status. These include being able to read medication administered to her and interpret it for her on benefit. She can also access various educational materials relating her health. The patient will however face barriers due to higher education status attributed to self-medication. 
The patient’s health and healthcare will affect her quality of life in the long run. The ability of my patient’s closest medical facility will dictate her speed of recovery as well as her overall quality of life. Poor diet attributed to eating quick foods will lead to obesity, diabetes and other life-threatening diseasesCITATION Tay16 \l 2057 (Taylor, et al., 2016). In this respect, an understanding of the health literacy will enable a patient see the need of changing their lifestyle for the betterment of their health. According to Roux (2016), the neighbourhood of a patient and the built environment can also affect their health or access to healthCITATION Rou16 \l 2057 (Roux, 2016). Marmot (2018) has demonstrated that low-income area and built environment are accompanied by poor social amenities, lack of healthy food sources and poor medical facilitiesCITATION Mar181 \l 2057 (Marmot, 2018). An individual living in rural