Factors That affect the Outcome of Public Health

In the 21st century, the population of the world is focused on living a good quality life. According to Coles and Porter (2011), promotion of public health has been conducted in many settings such as learning institutions, workplaces, hospitals, and homes. This approach shows that the widespread information signified importance of people's health. This need to improve the health of the population has gotten noticed by the government both locally and internationally. This is why the government have contributed a lot more to funding the health sector and enhance their health facilities. Regardless, people are still willing to spend money on getting better medical services. In this context, it is plausible that people are currently more informed of the factors that influence their health. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the biological, social, and environmental factors that influence health outcomes.

Biological Factors

Genetics and Human Genome
The study of genetics and the human genome is important for identification of hereditary diseases. The ability to map the different genes in the human DNA has made it possible to determine particular mutant genes that might be present in the human DNA. According to Quackenbush (2013), the presence of carriers of recessively inherited diseases in human genes results into disorders such as cystic fibrosis. Similarly, there are genes associated with certain disorders such that their presence in an individual's DNA leads result into disorders like Huntingdon disease.

Age and Life-Course
Age influences health outcome in view of the cumulative sex as well as hereditary factors that mark a person's entire life cycle. It is imperative to note that the probability of an aged person falling ill is higher compared to a child. As noted by Chan and Tse (2012), the condition Urinary incontinence is manageable among the young people. On the other hand, the condition is not manageable among the old persons. It is inferred that old age hinders the treatment of urinary incontinence despite the disease being treatable and reversible in cases of children.

Individual Lifestyle Activities and Behaviors
Wellings, Mitchell, and Collumbien (2012) note that an individual's lifestyle activities and behaviors account for particular health connected behaviors as well as conditions that in total describe a person's activities at a personal level. In this view, diet and physical activities are at the center of personal lifestyle. For instance, it is common sense that eating proportionately what the body needs and exercising regularly would not lead to obesity. Consumption of excess alcohol results into liver cirrhosis while taking tobacco in excess increases the chances of acquiring respiratory diseases. Similarly, a sexually active individual risks being HIV positive in the event that they have unprotected sex with infected persons. Hence, failure to maintain a healthy living style creates opportunities for opportunistic health conditions.

Social Factors

Income and social status
The people with high income and belong to the high social class are associated with better health. They have the opportunity to seek medical advice as well as access the best health facilities either privately or those of the public. In comparison, the middle-class persons with middle income have relatively good health. The middle-class individuals can access middle-class health facilities and access health services whose bills they can pay. The lower class individuals earn less income that can only partially cater for their basic needs while the extremely poor and to some extent homeless are associated with poor health. They have minimal access to health facilities and cannot pay for medical bills in case situations their conditions deteriorate. This is one reason that mortality rate is high among the lower class individuals.

Level of education
Education is power, thus the higher the level of education an individual attains, the higher the probability of living a better and a healthy life. For instance, persons with access to college and university education have higher chances of getting employment opportunities from which they would get better salary adequate to cover the basic needs and pay for the medical bills. From another perspective, Orlowski and Orlowski (2016) infer that access to education informs the persons of the various ways of staying healthy and living a healthy life. Such information is drawn from science subjects that generally relate and borrow knowledge from all disciplines.

Social support networks
People with a great social support that is offered by family members, friends, as well as the community are associated with better health. For instance, in the event that an individual lives a lifestyle and portrays behaviors that are contrary to those that foster healthy living, the social support network system that the individual has will advise him, seek medical attention on his or her behalf or rather bear the responsibility of ensuring that recommended lifestyle is adopted by the person to live a healthy life.

Gender
Gender according is a social distinction that distinguishes men and women. As such, it is noted that there are specific diseases that are only prone to women and not men and vice versa. Men as observed are often involved in more strenuous activities that expose them to injuries and increased chances of acquiring diseases. For example, at about age 65, 39 percent of men develop heart diseases compared to 27 percent for women. Further comparison shows that men have higher chances of suffering from other diseases including autism, kidney stones, and pancreatitis while women have a higher possibility of suffering from the stroke.

Environmental Factors

Living and working conditions
Living and working conditions influence health in two aspects. On one hand, living in an affluent area and working in work friendly environments associates an individual to a better health. For instance, living in areas with proper sewerage systems, availability of health facilities and access to quality food as well as working in a place that is mindful of environmental hazards fosters healthy living. On the other hand, poor living conditions characterized by flowing busted sewerages, lack of latrines and eating low quality foods as well as working in place that is not mindful to provide protective gears endangers the life of an individual besides exposure to health hazards with minimal or no access to health facilities in case one suddenly develops a health condition and require an agent medical attention (Wellings, Mitchell, & Collumbien, 2012).

In summary, factors influencing health outcomes can be categorized into three classes. As noted in the findings of the paper, there are biological, social, and environmental factors. In all the three major classes, there are certain aspects that are beyond human control and those within human control. Therefore, it is imperative that common sense takes precedence to manage factors that influence disease outcomes yet are with human control in order to increase the chances of healthy living.

References

Chan, L., & Tse, V. (2012). Multidisciplinary care of urinary incontinence. London, Springer. http://www.myilibrary.com?id=400942.
Coles, L., & Porter, E. (2011). Policy and strategy for improving health and wellbeing. Exeter [England], Learning Matters. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=820132.
Orlowsky, M., & Orlowsky, M. (2016). Introduction to Health Behaviors. Delmar Cengage Learning. http://www.r2library.com/Resource/Title/1285172620.
Quackenbush, J. (2013). Curiosity guides: the human genome. Watertown, Mass, Imagine Pub. https://www.overdrive.com/search?q=C9CB8B22-6859-4B5F-9DC2-129C93343EB0.
Wellings, K., Mitchell, K., & Collumbien, M. (2012). Sexual health: a public health perspective. Maidenhead, McGraw Hill/Open University Press.