1a) What are the social determinants of health? Explain how social determinants of health contribute to the development of disease. Describe the fundamental idea that the communicable disease chain model is designed to represent.

Global Health Issue-COVID-19 Pandemic

The international community is affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The infection was first detected in 2019 before widely spreading in 2020. Nearly every aspect of the world’s economy has been affected by COVID-19. Healthcare systems across the world had several challenges in coping with and responding to COVID-19. Due to inadequate planning, there was a short supply of personal protective equipment. Given that preventive measures such as quarantine and lockdowns were used to stop the virus from spreading, public healthcare systems around the world had to stop the provision of certain healthcare services. The unavailability of public transport prevented those suffering from chronic conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer from traveling to hospitals to receive care. Low-income countries were more affected as it was reported during the pandemic that the use of services such as HIV, tuberculosis, and antenatal services had reduced in countries such as Kenya, Bangladesh, and Pakistan (Kaye et al., 2020). Currently, healthcare expenditure has increased in several countries as preventive measures for COVID-19 are still being implemented.

Health partnerships enable healthcare delivery systems to collaborate in addressing global health issues. Several partnerships exist between high-income countries’ healthcare delivery or training institutions and the equivalents in low- or middle-income nations. The ability and expertise of the medical workforce inside a specific institution are increased through these peer-to-peer collaborations. The collaborations expand to provide support for health systems that are more integrated, including institutional and national health policies, protocols, and standards (Plamondon et al., 2021). Health organizations such as the World Health Organization enable countries to collaborate to address global health concerns. The organizations are funded by richer countries which in turn support developing countries. The stakeholders involved are ministries of health, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and professional organizations.

References

Kaye, A., Okeagu, C., Silva, R., Hurley, J., Arron, B., Cornett, E., & Liu, H. (2020). Economic impact of COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare facilities and systems: International perspectives. Best Practice & Research Clinical Anaesthesiology, January. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.bpa.2020.11.009

Plamondon, K. M., Brisbois, B., Dubent, L., & Larson, C. P. (2021). Assessing how global health partnerships function : an equity-informed critical interpretive synthesis. Globalization and Health, 1–13.