Quick questions on Determinants of health and health inequities: HSC Health and Movement Science Focus Area 1

Genetics, sex, age, body composition. Largely non-modifiable. Examples: genetic risk for breast cancer (BRCA1/2), age-related cardiovascular risk, biological sex differences in autoimmune disease.

Family structure, peer group, cultural beliefs, religion, language, media. Shape risk behaviours, help-seeking and access to information. Examples: family smoking patterns predict adolescent uptake; cultural norms around alcohol shape consumption; English proficiency affects access to written health information.

Income, employment, education, occupation. The single strongest population-level driver of health gradients in most Australian data. Higher income / education quintiles have longer life expectancy, lower smoking rates, lower obesity, lower mental-illness prevalence.

Geography (remoteness), housing, infrastructure, exposure to pollutants, access to healthy food and safe physical activity. Examples: remote Australia has higher rates of preventable hospitalisation; food deserts in outer-suburban areas correlate with obesity; lead exposure in Mount Isa and Broken Hill from historical mining.

Specific Australian programs (NACCHO, Western Sydney Diabetes, Heart Foundation salt-reduction work, Cancer Council tobacco control) score better than abstract claims.

Individual, sociocultural, socioeconomic, environmental - then add the word that lifts the answer: cluster. State explicitly that the determinants occur together, so the disadvantage is multiplied, not added. That single move separates a description from an analysis.

Replace "poorer people have worse health" with "the life-expectancy gap by socioeconomic area is about 7 years (ABS/AIHW, 2022-24)" or "the First Nations gap is about 8.8 years for males (ABS, 2020-22)". A named population (a socioeconomic quintile, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, Western Sydney) plus a figure WITH a year earns marks a vague claim cannot.

For a data/stimulus item, first DESCRIBE (direction, the endpoints with figures, whether the trend is steady or reverses), then EXPLAIN with the determinants, then say what it implies (a stepwise gradient is the fingerprint of clustered structural determinants - an avoidable inequity, not a natural inequality).

Identify the four categories of determinant of health and give one Australian example of each. [4 marks]

Analyse how the determinants of health interact to produce the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health gap. [6 marks]

Justify the use of a multi-component intervention (rather than a single-component intervention) to address a chosen Australian health inequity. [8 marks]