Dear Colleagues,
Two recent items on the list have emphasized that it is 'not just the health care system' that determines health, including the CBC Sick Societies piece: 'Freelance journalist Jill Eisen discovers that the reasons have little to do with our health care systems'

This messaging may confound an understanding of the SDOH.
The health system is intricatedly entangled with the rest of the public systems, and it eats away at most of our health care tax dollars. It is not an aside--it is a central problematic.  The health system is a massively effective systemic reinforcer of individual-based approaches to human health and suffering. There is a danger in setting it aside in SDOH discussions. Instead, it is important to integrate a critique of the health care system when ever it is mentioned in SDOH discussions, including solid suggestions about how it can operate as key structural underpinning of the maintenance of health inequities. In our attempt to emphasize the social determinant sof health, we may be throwing out the baby with the bathwater in implying that the health systems are a separate, and less significant driver of inequities. It is close to the center in the complex adaptive systems that create and sustain health inequality and inequity...Think I'll write a commentary :)
all the best,
Elizabeth


Elizabeth McGibbon, PhD, RN
Associate Professor, School of Nursing
St. Francis Xavier University
PO Box 5000, Antigonish, NS, CANADA, B2G 2W5



________________________________
From: Social Determinants of Health [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dennis Raphael [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, December 31, 2010 9:52 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [SDOH] Social Work and SDOH


http://www.oasw.org/en/membersite/pdfs/A2HeatherMaxwell&KatePowerSDOH.pdf To leave, manage or join list: https://listserv.yorku.ca/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=sdoh&A=1

To leave, manage or join list: https://listserv.yorku.ca/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=sdoh&A=1