Sociology Week 2
Focus on social inequalities and how it brings about health disparities
The socio-biologic translation shows how the macros social level effects an individual’s
personal lifestyle.
The framework of
determinants of health shows
how each factor contributes
to an individual’s health.
Upstream social
determinants = occur at
macro level
Downstream social
determinants = occur at micro
level
, Structural Competencies
Structural competency is used to describe the ability of health care providers and trainees to
appreciate how symptoms, clinical problems, diseases and attitudes towards patients,
populations and health systems are influenced by ‘upstream’ social determinants of health.
To understand health care in a social context. The importance of structural background in
impacting patient’s health.
Critical consciousness → skill that places medicine in a social, cultural, and historical context
and which is couple with an active recognition of societal problems and a search for
appropriate solutions.
• “Train health-care professionals to think about how such variables as race, class, gender,
and ethnicity are shaped both by the interactions of two persons in a room, and by the
larger structural contexts in which their interactions take place. And that as such,
clinicians require skills that help them treat persons that come to clinics as patients, and
at the same time recognize how social and economic determinants, biases, inequities,
and blind spots shape health and illness long before doctors or patients enter
examination rooms…”
Promoting awareness of structural forces is the first step towards promoting recognition of the
web of interpersonal networks, environmental factors and political/socioeconomic forces that
surround clinical encounters.
Focus on social inequalities and how it brings about health disparities
The socio-biologic translation shows how the macros social level effects an individual’s
personal lifestyle.
The framework of
determinants of health shows
how each factor contributes
to an individual’s health.
Upstream social
determinants = occur at
macro level
Downstream social
determinants = occur at micro
level
, Structural Competencies
Structural competency is used to describe the ability of health care providers and trainees to
appreciate how symptoms, clinical problems, diseases and attitudes towards patients,
populations and health systems are influenced by ‘upstream’ social determinants of health.
To understand health care in a social context. The importance of structural background in
impacting patient’s health.
Critical consciousness → skill that places medicine in a social, cultural, and historical context
and which is couple with an active recognition of societal problems and a search for
appropriate solutions.
• “Train health-care professionals to think about how such variables as race, class, gender,
and ethnicity are shaped both by the interactions of two persons in a room, and by the
larger structural contexts in which their interactions take place. And that as such,
clinicians require skills that help them treat persons that come to clinics as patients, and
at the same time recognize how social and economic determinants, biases, inequities,
and blind spots shape health and illness long before doctors or patients enter
examination rooms…”
Promoting awareness of structural forces is the first step towards promoting recognition of the
web of interpersonal networks, environmental factors and political/socioeconomic forces that
surround clinical encounters.
