Social and Structural Determinants of Population Health

Environment

The environment surrounding us contributes a lot to our health. These factors include housing and working conditions. Families living in a low social structure have poor housing conditions. Those living in cities are faced with overcrowding and live in rented houses.  Most of the tenants neglect these properties due to lack of enough income. Private landlords also ignore the conditions of the properties subjecting the families living in them to health problems. Owner occupiers may not also have the finance and resources to maintain their properties resulting to a decrease in their health. Most rural people live in overcrowded houses due to large number of family and inadequate shelter affecting their health.

 Natural environment also contributes to illness for instance air and the quality of water. Due to pollution in remote and rural areas, most of the air is polluted and the water not fit for human consumption. A study done by the Trent Community Health Observatory shows shocking figures of illness due to living in rural and remote areas of Australia.. The lower class people cannot afford resources so as to leave the remote and rural areas and move to urban areas where there is a healthy environment. This lower class sector will continue to suffer from poor health due to the environment they leave in (McGrail 1998).