Social Determinants of Health
Social determinants of health are social or societal factors that directly affect a person's health, and their ability to live out certain lifestyle choices. Often when I think of neurological diseases or mental illness, I think about how much of the homeless population in the U.S. are people who suffer from untreated or unmanaged mental illness. Whether that be addiction, or schizophrenia, or any condition that prevents them from maintaining a stable job, there are people in the U.S. that lack a home. This is a perfect example of a person's socioeconomic status or their personal family infrastructure can directly affect their mental health. In undergrad, I wrote a short research paper on the asylums in American history and their gradual decline and eventual abolishment. The people who inhabited asylums were often people who had severe mental illness, or people who had no place else to go. Without these systems in place, more people with mental illness are being taken care of by family and the healthcare system in their respective hometowns or places of residence.
The reason that I bring this topic up when speaking about social determinants of health is because I am concerned about the people who have mental illness, and have no place to go. They lack family members who care or wealth, or they outlive their family members. These factors attribute to some people being homeless due to their mental illness and thus they are bounced around from psychiatric wards to prison, to homeless shelters and the streets with no way to manage their conditions.
Service and community engagement while facilitating leadership in each of us is going to prepare us to be OT practitioners because we will have a wider, less naïve view of the world. It is important for us to explore Memphis and its demographics, to understand the populations we will serve. Something I wish to work on is overcoming shyness when interacting with poor or homeless populations in service settings. I know it sounds terrible of me, but I become increasingly shy around people in homeless shelters or soup kitchens. Perhaps I feel shame or some negative emotion that I am avoiding internally, or perhaps its a knee-jerk reaction or bias. Whatever it may be, I want to overcome it in order to be a more effective OT in the future and honestly to be a better person. I think attaining these hours will help me do that.
The reason that I bring this topic up when speaking about social determinants of health is because I am concerned about the people who have mental illness, and have no place to go. They lack family members who care or wealth, or they outlive their family members. These factors attribute to some people being homeless due to their mental illness and thus they are bounced around from psychiatric wards to prison, to homeless shelters and the streets with no way to manage their conditions.
Service and community engagement while facilitating leadership in each of us is going to prepare us to be OT practitioners because we will have a wider, less naïve view of the world. It is important for us to explore Memphis and its demographics, to understand the populations we will serve. Something I wish to work on is overcoming shyness when interacting with poor or homeless populations in service settings. I know it sounds terrible of me, but I become increasingly shy around people in homeless shelters or soup kitchens. Perhaps I feel shame or some negative emotion that I am avoiding internally, or perhaps its a knee-jerk reaction or bias. Whatever it may be, I want to overcome it in order to be a more effective OT in the future and honestly to be a better person. I think attaining these hours will help me do that.
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