Social Epidemiology Case Study

South Africa, known as a developing middle-income country, underwent a peaceful transition from apartheid to a constitutional democracy and considerable social progress has been made. Yet, the health and well-being of most South Africans remain afflicted by the persisting social disparities and inadequate human resources that we are faced with. These factors are not only affected by the healthcare or access to health services but, result from multidimensional and complex factors linked to the social determinants of health, which include a range of social, political, economic, environmental, and cultural factors, including poverty, inequality and lifestyle of the people. For many years, it has been recognised that people with the lowest socio-economic

Social epidemiology is a sub-division of epidemiology that focuses on the social conditions affecting the health and population levels, with an underlying that the way in which health and disease are dispersed among members of a community is a reflection of how advantages and disadvantages are dispersed, in a community (Williams, 2016). Social epidemiology refers to the societal factors that determine the patterning of disease within and across a population (Miller et al, n.d: pp 17-25). Social epidemiologists suggest that not all people are created equally and thus are separated by economic, political, social and other forms of structures that determine unequal distribution (Miller et al, n.d: pp 25-30). These epidemiologists also seek to identify and explain patterns of morbidity and mortality, which are not at random, but more geographically and socially patterned. According to, Miller et al (n.d), in the 1960s and 1970s, a new branch of epidemiology emerged focusing on the health impact of social conditions and status as key determinants of morbidity and

The social determinants of population health have been debated in South Africa since the colonial period. Specifically, Tuberculosis was debated, focusing on whether the persistently high rate of this disease observed in Africans was caused due to a lack of acquired immunity to the bacilli introduced in impoverished living conditions faced by most black South Africans (Myer et al., 2004: pp 112-125). The social determinants I chose to investigate and elaborate on are poverty (inequality and unemployment), disease (HIV, tuberculosis, hypertension and obesity), lifestyle (use of tobacco and nutrition), education and the environment affecting the health of South