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Action on social determinants of health

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Action on social determinants of health
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Action on social determinants of health
Introduction
For a long period, health practitioners have developed different strategies to improve the health of people and the whole communities. The health practitioners have devoted on focusing on social determinants of health, and deal with them in order to improve health of their clients, as well as that of the whole community. According to World Health organization, social determinants of health are the conditions where people are born, work and live, and these factors determine the quality of life. These factors are influenced by the distribution of power, money, as well as resources in global, national, as well as local level (Laliberté, Perreault, Damestoy and Lalonde 2012, p. 192)
The social determinants of health significantly affect health inequities. Health inequities refer to avoidable and unfair health inequalities. On the other hand, health inequalities refer to differences in health status, or the distribution of health determinants between different groups. The public health practitioners focus on improving the health of their clients and the community through improving accessibility of the social determinants of health. In other words, they provide equality in terms of providing social determinants of health to communities on order to improve their health outcomes (Keleher, Murphy and MacDougall, 2007, p 45). As a result, Laverack asks the key question regarding this approach. The question of whether health practitioners are there to empower their clients or whether they are there to change their client remain in order to improve health. This rhetoric remains controversial, and the lack of answer to this question rest on the fact there is little knowledge on the theoretical background, as well as practical skills on empowerment and change. This paper is a review of empowerment and change literature and provides relevant examples to answer whether public

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