Higher Socioeconomic Status

Over history, people with higher socioeconomic statuses (SES) have always been privileged with better health. Although the gap between socioeconomic classes has decreased, it's still quite significant. Health as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) is "a state of complete physical, mental, and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity". While high SES is defined as a measure of one's combined economic and social status and tends to be positively associated with better health. This will be supported by analyzing the following points: education, social status and stigma, income, and employment.

High SES can lead to better health due to many reasons, we'll begin by firstly discussing education and social status;

According to Advances in Life Course Research 19 (2014) 1–13 –a survey which conducted data from The Norwegian Monitor Survey (adults aged 15-95 years), lifestyle choices significantly affects health, it was found that people with higher SES and higher education are more physically active, higher percentage of quitting smoking, eat healthier food, and report a better self-assessed health. Therefore, having a higher SES leads to a better education, and better education means better awareness and resources to be able to lead a healthy lifestyle; adopting better behaviors like daily exercising, eating organic food, and avoiding harmful habits like smoking, all contribute to the betterment of health in people with higher SES. Secondly, people with higher SES tend to be less stigmatized and this has a good influence on their health, on the contrary to people with lower SES. According to Social Science and Medicine Journal (2014, pp.15-23) people with lower SES are more stigmatized in society and that has a huge effect on their health in that it increases the

We also arrive at the concept of health inequity which is defined according to the WHO as "differences in health status or in the distribution of health determinants between different population groups", which in spite of all the efforts to minimize, is still quite there. In the end, it is recommended that education and awareness about health must be spread through all classes adequately, health care services should be more readily available in a better quality among lower socioeconomic classes, to promote and encourage a healthy lifestyle with more physical activities by providing many public facilities in the more deprived countries, and not to forget raising awareness about the importance of mental health and how stress or depression for example can lead to poorer overall