Health and illness

Globally, people are now living longer than in the past. However, the life expectancy between nations in the world is unequal. Life expectancy mirrors the social and economic conditions of the country, as well as the quality of health care and its infrastructure. Individuals living in more affluent nations tend to live longer than those in the poorer nations. People experience health and illness in different ways. Some of this is due to cultural differences and location divergences, but more often, it is due to marked inequalities that influence the life expectancy of individuals, causations of illness, and availability of effective health care. In this chapter, we will discuss several important concepts. First, we introduce global health care issues that have created ill health and suffering among many individuals around the globe. Then, we discuss the determinants of health. We introduce the social determinants of health framework and within this, the intersection of gender, ethnicity, and social class, are elaborated. We also look at health inequality and equity that we have witnessed. Inequalities are the consequence of inequitable societies. Framed within the social determinant lens, we propose that social inequalities can be addressed through the concept of social justice. This is discussed in the last part of the chapter. In this chapter, we focus our discussion on migrant populations. Migration has become a global phenomenon in recent years. As migration has influenced human development globally, this focus deems appropriate for current global situations.