Poverty and Mental Health
Social determinants of health are as stated by the World Health Organization (n.d.) “conditions in which people are born, grow, live work and age” (para. 1) having, as a result, a substantial impact on a person’s health. An example is poverty which is when one lacks money to meet basic needs. This response will explore how poverty is interconnected with mental health, the impact of poverty and mental health on the health of an individual or population, and lastly use the five levels of prevention to provide examples of interventions addressing poverty and mental health.
Poverty as a social determinant of health is an issue that can be shaped by money, power, or resources (World Health Organization, n.d.). It can have many physical impacts on a person such as poor nutrition or lack of shelter resulting in illnesses. However, just as it impacts physically, it can also influence mental health when instead of recognizing poverty as a social health determinant, the individual is blamed (Sherrer, 2023). This causes things like stigma, feelings of worthlessness, avoidance, distancing, and isolation. In addition, poverty in childhood has been linked to a higher probability of addiction and mental health disorders in adulthood (Fleury, 2008). Mental health is a big issue in Canada and even larger in low-income groups who are three to four times more probable to experience poor mental health than those in higher-income groups (Shimmin, n.a.). Poverty has a profound impact on the health of an individual and population, hence it is important steps are taken to prevent it.
There are five stages of prevention, the primordial, primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary prevention stage. Primordial prevention often comes in the form of policies or laws and focuses on identifying and preventing risk factors (Kisling and Das, 2023). Since poverty is shaped by money, power, and resources, an increase in any of these things will result in a decline in poverty. This can be done by providing opportunities within a population for free education that will assist in providing a form of income or helpful resources as well as by creating job opportunities with embedded training granting individuals the money, power, and resources needed to be able to shift from a position of poverty towards one with enough funds to support basic needs. The primary prevention stage involves action taken before the beginning of a health problem to reduce its prevalence to the minimum (Kisling and Das, 2023). Examples of interventions to address poverty in this stage are providing more affordable housing, which could mean building more residences, and making food prices more affordable to the public. The secondary stage means to detect early signs of a health problem to stop its progression, in this case, finding ways to identify early signs of poverty in a population and protect others from experiencing it (Kisling and Das, 2023). This can be accomplished by educa