U.S. Health Care History and Foundations
Health care delivery is an evolving practice with significant developments over time. Understanding the historical developments is a foundation of better knowledge of how the health care system works and potential changes as time advances. Amid health care evolution, influential persons have made massive contributions that have shaped the health practice multi-dimensionally. The purpose of this paper is to explore significant dates, major developments, and the link between health determinants and population health.
Significant Dates in the History of Health Care
| Important Eras and Impacts (Harvard Medical School, 2023) |
| Significant Date: 1799 (small pox vaccine)
Explanation: Benjamin Waterhouse discovered the smallpox vaccine, paving the way for advanced procedures for disease control (Esparza, 2020). Significant Date: 1846 (anesthesia discovery) Explanation: John Collins demonstrated the use of anesthesia in surgery Significant Date: 1922- insulin discovery Explanation: Eliott Joslin introduced insulin in diabetes care, subsequently establishing the Joslin Diabetes Center (Barbetti & Taylor, 2019; Harvard Medical School, 2023). Significant Date: pap smear- 1945 Explanation: a major discovery for the detection of cervical cancer. Significant Date: 1954 (oral contraceptives) Explanation: the discovery paved the way for effective birth control. Significant Date: 1964 (human blood storage) Explanation: helped to maintain blood quality hence saving lives. Significant Date: 1968 (telemedicine) Explanation: this was a great discovery for facilitating remote health care delivery. Significant Date: 1979 (magnetic resonance imaging [MRI]) Explanation: a vital discovery for diagnosing illness and injury. Significant Date: 1990s (cancer therapy) Explanation: Alfred Goldberg and colleagues initiated the basic investigations for proteasome-inhibiting cancer therapy. Significant Date: 2003 (multidrug-resistant tuberculosis treatment) Explanation: research by the Global Health and Social Medicine demonstrated how multidrug-resistant tuberculosis could be treated via community-based treatment models. Significant Date: 2003 (source of preeclampsia) Explanation: Israel Deaconess researchers established the cause of preeclampsia, a leading cause of pregnancy complications worldwide. |
Link between Health Determinants and Population Health
All populations deserve equitable care that does not discriminate against them based on race, religion, culture, and other factors. Inevitably, people live in communities with varying resources, vulnerabilities, and health promotion practices. Health determinants are a leading cause of this variance and majorly comprise circumstances and the environment. To a large extent, determinants of health entail people’s geographic locations, genetics, social relationships, and conditions of their environment (Zhang & Xiang, 2019). From a health dimension, outcomes are multidimensional since populations experience health and illness differently depending on their knowledge, attitude, and access to essential services. The implication is that health outcomes will always vary across populations due to the inevitable differences in health determinants.
A close evaluation of selected health determinants can effectively demonstrate their impacts on population health. For instance, income and social status differences contribute to health disparities that cannot be overlooked when evaluating population health. Health research shows that people with a higher income have better health incomes than low-income populations (Zhang & Xiang, 2019). A high income allows people to access and afford health care services when needed. It also allows them to participate in multiple health promotion practices, including timely screening and healthy eating. Consequently, a wider gap between populations’ incomes contributes to a proportional difference in their health.
Other significant health determinants include education and the physical environment. Like income levels, low education levels are associated with poor health and high-stress levels (Raghupathi & Raghupathi, 2020). It also impedes healthy living since people adopt inappropriate health promotion interventions. Consequently, low education levels increase the need for population-centered health promotion programs to prevent diseases in such populations. The physi
Order this paper