Social Determinants of diabetes

Social factors such as availability of environmental resources contribute to high incidences of diabetes type 2. Understanding the social and environment resources is important in the fight against diabetes.

Social and environmental determinants

The social and environmental conditions and resources are the immediate conditions that can affect your health by a large extent. These resources have great relationships with the incidences of diabetes as establishes by a recent study by Michigan school of public health. However, the exact elements that result to high levels of diabetes are not clear, but there are important conditions in an individual’s life that affects health.

According to the researchers, the incidence and prevalence of the diseases are because of both an individual and the place of residence. Accessibility and availability of important elements such as good healthy food, water, social activity and exercise are essential in control of diseases. However, some elements such as safety and social cohesion have no relationship to the incidence of the diseases. Therefore, social and environmental factors matter differently depending on the individual’s accessibility and utilization. For example, people with high access to good healthy food have less incidences of obesity thus low prevalence of diabetes.

Effects of environmental resources on diabetes

On the other hand, individuals who are poor, and less accessible healthy living have a high chance of being affected by the disease. In addition, chronic stress, social economic factors, alcoholism, smoking, and poor exercise escalate the incidences of the disease. As a result, type 2 diabetes tends to be more prevalent in the less well of families and especially those with low-income populations. However, it affects individuations from different occupations, social and environmental conditions play a significant role in its high prevalence among various populations. Obese genetic environment is characterized by decreases physical activity and is a determinant of diabetes that affects people worldwide. Therefore, obesity is a condition that is not because of medical failures but individual problems such as poor dieting and failure to exercise.

Behavioral changes, family history of diabetes, poor education, low income, low levels of physical activity and high body max are some of the determinants of diabetes that can be controlled for effective prevention. Health is determined by various factors such as behavioral patterns, accessibility of essentials reduces thus these factors need to be considered holistically in control and prevention of diseases.

The research is therefore advocating for control of the high prevalence of the diseases such as diabetes that can be curbed right from the residential risks and environmental resources. There is needed for modification of specific features of neighborhood environments such as accessibility and availability of health food and physical activities that can help mitigate this problem. The researchers suggest diabetes type 2 have genetic and environmental determinants and thus it is more than a health condition. The prevalence can be prevented especially if the environmental conditions are properly addressed.