Political Social and Demographic Determinants of Health and Wellbeing for Individual

Introduction

Marginalizing people are individuals who are denied involvement in mainstream activities leading to discrimination and neglect. Among the marginalized individual are the cognitively impaired people. Cognitive impairment is described as a condition in which an individual has trouble remembering, learning, concentrating, or making decisions that impact their lives (Short & Mollborn, 2015). It ranges from mild to severe. Some signs of this condition include memory loss, language problems, attention, reasoning, and complex decision-making. Unfortunately, the community label these kinds of people who function outside the community norm as scary, weird, useless, and, hateful thus marginalizing them. Moreover, cognitively impaired individuals often find themselves in this position. However, there are various determinants of health among cognitively impaired people. Such determinants include political, social, and demographic (Compton & Shim, 2015). The political determinants of health involve analyzing how competing groups, processes, ideological positions, and institutions affect health within different political systems. Such determinates include laws and policies in health care practice. On the other hand, the social determinant of health consists of the condition in which individuals are born, cared for, live, and age. They include education, socioeconomic status, physical environment, and neighborhood. Moreover, increasing evidence shows that demographic factors like race, age, language, and ethnicity influence health outcomes. This topic is critical since it positively moves towards the provision of health among the cognitively impaired population. This link to the nursing and midwifery regulator guidelines suggests that nurses are professionally accountable to use clinical governance processes to promote individual healthcare (Compton & Shim, 2015). Therefore, this paper will discuss the Political, Social and Demographic Determinants of Health and Wellbeing for Individual with Cognitive Impairments

Social marginalization refers to social disadvantages and relegation to the fringe of society. This term is utilized in the United Kingdom, though it was first used in France. It is used in various sectors and disciplines, including sociology, education, politics, psychology, and economics. Marginalization is an international challenge that negatively affects societies globally (Sleeter, 2012). It involves individuals being blocked from various rights, resources, and opportunities that are often available to other groups of different traits and which are critical to social integration within that particular group. For instance, healthcare, employment, housing, democratic participation, and civic engagement. Alienation occurs due to race, class, religion, skin color, ethnic origin, childhood relationships, and educational status (Sleeter, 2012). Some marginalized people in the modern community include disability, racial minorities, drug users, individuals with mental disabilities, and LGBTQ+ people.

Cognitive Impaired individual

Cognitive impairment refers to when an individual has a challenge in remembering, concentrating, learning new things, and making decisions that impact their everyday life. This condition ranges from mild to severe. It is part of the neurocognitive disorder. This disorder includes mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a stage between the expected cognitive declines of normal aging (Petersen, 2011). Its traits include problems with memory, thinking, and language (Rock et al., 2014). The study reveals that the brain, changes as individuals grow older. Therefore, as people grow older, they become forgetful and sometimes take longer to think of a word information. In most cases, cognitive impairment occurs when individuals age or have mental challenges, thus experiencing loss of higher reasoning, decreased intelligence, learning disabilities, and reduced mental functioning (Petersen, 2011). Cognitive disorders may be present at birth or might develop at one point in individual life. However, there are some early causes of cognitive impairment like genetic disorders, chromosome abnormalities, parental drug exposure, malnutrition, heavy metal like mercury and lead poisoning, hypoglycemia, and hypothyroidism.

Individuals with disabilities are among the most marginalized groups globally (Dumith et al., 2011). Therefore, people with mental disabilities often experience great challenges, including lower education levels, less economic participation, poorer health outcomes, and increased poverty rates than people without disabilities. Morris (2014) states that people with disabilities face the challenge of being "different," thus facing oppression ranging from discrimination to oppression. Similarly, these people are considered sick, incapable, and possessed by supernatural powers, experiencing great depression, loneliness, pain, poverty, and other aspects of the tragedy. Moreover, people with severe mental disabilities are more likely to be daily smokers- 31%. Also, individuals with severe disabilities are more likely to be obese thus discriminated against due to their appearance. Also, an individual with an intellectual disability is far less likely to exercise than the general population, thus becoming abuse (Langa & Levine, 2014). Besides, individuals with mental disabilities are more likely to be poor, live in poor housing, and more challenging to get a job and education, thus socially excluded and marginalized. Also, due to their appearances, they are more likely to face violence due to their disability and have difficulty accessing appropriate health (Langa & Levine, 2014). Therefore they face societal & environmental challenges as families with mentally disabled individuals often face extra burdens and stress and fewer chances of employment. Moreover, due to cultural beliefs, people become fearful, thus actively discriminating against individuals with mental disabilities- including isolation, neglect, physical abuse, and death. Also, these individuals are educationally marginalized since they are often denied education and educational opportunities due to their mental capacity. Also, people with mental disability experiences neglect abuse where most people reports mistreatment including physical and sexual abuse. Also, such people have little Access to Healthcare and sports as

The political determinants of health refer to how different institutions, power constellations, interests, processes, and ideological positions impact health within various political platforms. There are several political determinants of health, including national, local, and international laws and legislation. For example, the Mental Health Act (1983) is among the critical legislation that determines people's assessment, treatment, and rights with a mental health disorder (Keown et al., 2018). An individual under this legislation requires urgent treatment for a mental health disorder and prevention of harm from themselves and others. Similarly, we are aware of the Mental Health Act 2007, which ensures that individuals with severe mental illness that threaten their safety or health can be treated regardless of their consent to reduce the possibility of harming themselves or others. These policies are critical since they determine an individual's health outcome, and it is a crucial element in mainstream public health (Keown et al., 2018). In addition, politically progressive governments often create policies that reduce discrimination, such as those with mental disabilities and the social inequalities on health. Also, political aspects protect the health of an individual and promote a well-functioning ecosystem. The political outputs include taxes, law social security benefits, and public services. Therefore political aspects promote the wellbeing and health of the individual with cognitive impairments, thus promoting health.

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References

Compton, M.T. and Shim, R.S., 2015. The social determinants of mental health. Focus, 13(4), pp.419-425.

Dumith, S.C., Hallal, P.C., Reis, R.S. and Kohl III, H.W., 2011. Worldwide prevalence of physical inactivity and its association with human development index in 76 countries. Preventive medicine, 53(1-2), pp.24-28.

Keown, P., Murphy, H., McKenna, D. and McKinnon, I., 2018. Changes in the use of the Mental Health Act 1983 in England 1984/85 to 2015/16. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 213(4), pp.595-599.

Langa, K.M. and Levine, D.A., 2014. The diagnosis and management of mild cognitive impairment: a clinical review. Jama, 312(23), pp.2551-2561.

Petersen, R.C., 2011. Mild cognitive impairment. New England Journal of Medicine, 364(23), pp.2227-2234.

Rock, P.L., Roiser, J.P., Riedel, W.J. and Blackwell, A.D., 2014. Cognitive impairment in depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychological medicine, 44(10), p.2029.

Morris, J., 2014. Pride against prejudice: Transforming attitudes to disability. The Women's Press.

Short, S.E. and Mollborn, S., 2015. Social determinants and health behaviors: conceptual frames and empirical advances. Current opinion in psychology, 5, pp.78-84.

Sleeter, C.E., 2012. Confronting the marginalization of culturally responsive pedagogy. Urban Education, 47(3), pp.562-584.