User talk:Lbockhorn/sandbox

Article Proposal

I propose to create an article on “Social Determinants of Health in Poverty” for several reasons:

1. There exists a problem: Within the United States, and across the globe, there exists massive differentials in health outcomes between disadvantaged individuals and the rest of the population, and these health outcomes can be determined based on social factors specific to impoverished populations. Research supports that there exists these differentials. 2. Its importance: Differences in health attributable to different factors such as health care, access to the social safety net, and access to nutritional foods can ensnare the impoverished in the cycle of poverty, disadvantaging many people in society. Poverty traps easily arise from the condition of poor health as people cannot provide themselves with proper care to properly treat their illness, disadvantaging their lives and society. Health is a basic human right that ensures a life where individuals can maximize their capabilities, and understanding the causes of the differences between health will help create policies that solve the underlying causes. Such importance will be reduced to clearly cited factual information within the Wikipedia article itself, with nearly all of this material stated and cited. 3. Lack of awareness: Very few people realize how devastatingly enormous differentials in health care and health outcomes are between privileged and disadvantaged populations, across the globe and within one population. The general public does not recognize the immense ramifications of prevalent injustices in healthcare and social safety nets within one country, and comparatively between different regions of the world. Readers should recognize the social determinants of health within impoverished populations that have different dynamics than the rest of the population. 4. Providing solutions: Health, health care, and access to these provisions represents one of the most prominent debates currently, and has been of vital importance over the past decades to the United States, governments across the globe, and non-profit organizations seeking to understand and improve the health of people. Understanding health, health differentials, differences in these outcomes, as well as access to health care and obstacles embedded in society provides an educated view that builds the foundation for making policy decisions that influence the health and well-being of our nation.

I opt to create a new page rather than edit the existing page social determinants of health for the following reasons:

1. That article has many tags for subpar content, including having multiple issues, being written like a personal reflection or essay rather than an encyclopedic description of the subject, disputed neutrality, a slanted tone, and the perspective provided deals primarily with Canada and does not represent a world view. 2. This article does not provide a specific approach to how poverty, low income, or low socioeconomic status greatly affects the health of people, and how even with those in poverty there is great disparity between health outcomes. Neglect of this fact provides readers with a limited scope of just how divisively health care disparities cut society, even within similar income classes within a country and across the world. 3. Finally, structural causes inherent in society are not clearly represented, and need to be to provide a clear picture to the public of how structural institutions and policy provide these health differentials between different groups of people, even within the lives of the impoverished.

Introduction:

This article will focus on social determinants of health outcomes in impoverished communities by focusing on the disparities in health and causes of such attributable to gender, socioeconomic status, geographical location, society, developed nation status, and underlying societal causes. I will explain all the statistics of gender differences in health and then address underlying causes including a structural violence aspect of gender differences. Structural violence will be one of many academic paradigms that explains the underlying causes of social characteristics determining health outcomes. Health inequalities among economically disadvantaged people, which have be attributed to poor healthcare, lack of nutrition, lack of resources to maintain healthcare, and the influence of neighborhood, location, education, and other factors on health outcomes. Social determinants discuss not only discrimination but also the fundamental causes of health differentials.

I propose the following preliminary outline: Social determinants of health in poverty

a. Socioeconomic status

1. in Healthcare and access

2. in health outcomes

3. in nutrition

4. in life longevity

b. Global region/ nation

1. in Healthcare and access

2. in health outcomes

3. in nutrition

4. in life longevity

c. Developed/undeveloped nations

1. in Healthcare and access

2. in health outcomes

3. in nutrition

4. in life longevity

d. Gender

i. Gender disparities in health

1. in Healthcare and access

2. in health outcomes

3. in nutrition

4. in life longevity

e. Structural institutions

i. Structural violence

ii. Specific Obstacles to Healthcare

Lbockhorn (talk) 04:07, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

So this is what you've got in mind. I formatted your points. If that's a problem, please just undo what I did. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 18:05, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi, I looked at the article that you've been editing in your sandbox; while I understand your points above, I think the fact that social determinants of health has problems should not mean that the best solution is to create a new article; instead I wonder if you could work with the editors of that page to get it fixed - even if it means dramatic edits, so that the points you note above are captured. Otherwise, there will be a ton of overlap - both potential and future- between the existing article (and the topic of social determinants of health) in general and your specific angle on it, which is looking through a poverty lens. Secondly, in briefly reviewing the work you've done to date, I think it may be too long and technically detailed for an encyclopedia article - it looks like solid research, but a wiki article should be targeted at laypeople and not professional academics, and should not contain original research. I don't want to discourage you, I just wanted to share some (unsolicited) opinions... --Karl.brown (talk) 17:11, 27 March 2012 (UTC)