Essay Example on Socioeconomic Status SES and how it fits into the Lifespan

For this assignment I chose Socioeconomic Status SES and how it fits into the lifespan model SES is a large piece of the puzzle in understanding how education environmental factors mental physical health and financial status can dictate the outcome of a person's life The main idea of my paper is the link between cardiovascular mortality rate in older adults with lower SES With this being said I will now focus on my supporting article The article I chose for this is assignment was an English longitudinal study of aging The study used 8688 participants over the age of fifty years old In this study there were four categories of factors that were measured socio factors such as occupation of participant and paternal as well as education The next category was behavioral factors such as smoking physical activity alcohol intake and BMI Psychosocial factors were defined as social relationships social networks loneliness positive negative support from spouse and family Lastly physiological factors were defined as blood pressure and high cholesterol With these measured being considered important we can move on to the results In the longitudinal study 1301 participants died during the 8 4 year follow up and 438 from CVD However results still showed a significant difference in the low stable SES vs the high SES Low SES resulted in higher risk of smoking physical inactivity increased BMI negative support high blood pressure High SES was more associated with higher risk of alcohol consumption increased social network size high total cholesterol and positive support Also the study introduced inflammatory markers such as CRP which measures an individual's risk of CVD and fibrinogen 

Both inflammatory markers were increasingly associated with low SES As anticipated smoking and physical inactivity were associated with CVD mortality as well as loneliness and small network size High total cholesterol was related to lower CVD mortality risk Whereas high fibrinogen and CRP levels were related to higher CVD mortality risk All of the risk factors that were combined counted for 37 of the association between SES and CVD mortality Most of the contribution for CVD came from behavioral factors and inflammatory markers To sum up these results we will now discuss the overall idea of the study In conclusion the study set out to focus on the social determinant associated with low SES in older adults as high risk factors for CVD However the American Heart Association concluded that these social determinants were very limited in concluding the risk for CVD Overall the article states that there are other existing studies that have shown the behavioral factors as major contributors to the association between adult SES and mortality With this being said I will provide my closing statement I chose this article because I find it to be very informative as well as appropriate for the lifespan model Even though this study was created in England it is very relatable to the American population The American census bureau reported that 44 8 million people are living in poverty as of 2016 with minorities making the lowest income With the United States being a capitalist country I can understand the idea of measuring low SES with correlation to socio behavioral psychosocial and physiological factors Cardiovascular disease amounts for 800 000 deaths in the United States 

That counts for one out of every three deaths in the United States Living in poverty can limit people's access to better care not only for themselves but for their children and loved ones Better care can easily mean being able to afford healthier food choices Most communities that I ve come across that hold populations of people who are of lower income and are minorities contains food desserts Food desserts are defined as the lack of stores that has fresh produce and healthier food choices Usually communities with food dessert only have access to fast food restaurants The food may be cheaper for the low income to enjoy but many studies have shown a link between and increase in high blood pressure cholesterol diabetes as well as CVD from certain processed food Also living in poverty can restrict people's access to better education In my personal opinion good quality schools with better educational resources are not in poverty restricted areas This creates difficulties for children including adults to receive all of the tools and motivation to gain preparedness for a better health and financial choices Having a low SES can create hardship for anyone Usually there has to be sacrifices in the family A single parent will have to work many jobs to make ends and pay bill and take care of their children The children can feel the stress from the parent to do well in school or to focus on certain things to help their family survive Older adults over the age of 65 who has been living in low SES their life can struggle to enjoy the declining years There is also the possibility of not being able to afford medical support such as medications for their health concern From the financial factors there is a risk of not being able to go into retirement I believe if you spend your life in poverty there is a greater risk that that person will not have saved enough to retire Although there are many factors that can affect SES and older adult s health not every person who comes from a low SES will have the same outcome My understanding is that there are too many people who are at risk and as a country this should be a concern for everyone