Social Determinants

We seem to get it with other forms of health. If someone asked you if respiratory health—how you breath—was related to your body, or to your environment, a picture would probably come to mind that would help you answer: ‘Both!’.

In that picture, we might imagine someone with good underlying health, but living next door to a polluting factory, who still has difficulties. And of course this could be aggravated if we have any underlying difficulties.

Something similar is true of mental health—these external factors are typically known as social determinants. Sometimes it’s not just that you are stressed, but that your life is stressful.

A useful question to reflect on is how you can (and how we all can for each other) not just work with your perspective, but with your context. And often these go hand in hand: seeing things differently can lead to creating external changes, which in turn can help you find better perspectives.

Leave a Reply