Understanding the Social Patterning of Health, Reaction Paper Example

Aronowitz (1) creates an argument that health care outcomes should be looked at from a multidisciplinary aspect. While this is true, it is important to note that dynamics of the society should not only be viewed on the consumption level, but on every level of ethnology, sociology and economics. While consumption patterns are important when creating a framework for predicting health outcomes, the change in consumption patterns is more important. Diabetes, for example, rises at a higher rate in India than in the Western civilization. Hu (1250) states that globalization is responsible for this phenomenon: as he states, the main reasons for it are “rapid urbanization, nutrition transition, and increasingly sedentary lifestyles”. Similarly, Booth et al. (304) state that the risk of diabetes can be brought down to urban planning, including “unwalkable neighborhoods” and poverty.

Based on  Aronowitz’ research, it would be interesting to conclude several multi-disciplinary research studies, related to changes in lifestyle, diet, nutrition access and environment. It is clear from the study created by Aronovitz (6) that framing health has the potential of increasing disparities. Therefore, it might be interesting to examine the impact of urbanization, dietary, lifestyle, and living conditions changes, instead of examining single determinants of health, such as genetics, socio-economic status and so on.

The study might reveal that newly immigrated families moving into poverty-struck urban neighborhoods are not only at risk of diabetes because they cannot afford nutritious food. They might be at increased risk because they are not used to the high carbohydrate diet they have to get used to in their new country. They will also be unable to get exercise, because they are afraid to walk in the neighborhood. As a summary, the authors of the current reaction paper agree with Aronovitz, however, they suggest that processes and transitions of culture, social status would also be examined as triggers of epidemic diseases.

References

Aronowitz, R. “Framing disease: An Underappreciated Mechanism for the Social Patterning of Health”. Social Science & Medicine. 67 (2008) p.1-9. 2008. Print.

Booth, G., Creatore, M., Moineddin, R., Gozdyra, P., Weyman, J., Matheson, F., Glazier, R. “Unwalkable Neighborhoods, Poverty, and the Risk of Diabetes Among Recent Immigrants to Canada Compared With Long-Term Residents”. Diabetes Care. Feb 2013; 36(2): 302–308. 2013. Print.

Hu, F. “Globalization of Diabetes. The role of diet, lifestyle, and genes” Diabetes Care. American Diabetes Association. 2011. Print.