Human Rights --> SES --> Health

Social economic status is affected and determined by an array of social factors and that I believe are outlined in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (in which health is mentioned in Article 25). If these rights are deprived, then social economic status declines. Some factors are more upstream/downstream then others. For instance, poor housing would lead to poor health but not vice versa necessarily. I think “health” is downstream for the majority of the social factors and therefore SES does play a major role in the result of an individual’s and community’s health. The human rights and their causal relationships to one another are universal so occur in both developing and developed nations. The 30 articles of the declaration cover not only water, food and health care, but much more complex social factors such as “freedom of thought, conscience and religion”, “right to rest and leisure” and “to participate in the cultural life of the community” ("The Universal Declaration of Human Rights). The deprivation of these rights could affect mental health! This is where the role of public health steps in and works on improving the cause of illness and not just the illness itself – preventative medicine – by improving upstream social factors that affect health. I believe health care systems need to emphasize public health’s role more and ensure that human rights that directly and mostly strongly affect health (such as poor housing, water/food, education, employment, etc.) are upheld.