The health of vulnerable and marginalized populations is influenced by a variety of different factors, many of which people do not think about or have no idea that they can influence health. After our class presentation, I was surprised at how many factors can influence health, and how many other perspectives we as healthcare providers have to think about when we are providing care to our patients. As a future nurse, I will commit to educating myself and how to look at patient cases from different perspectives, as this will allow me to provide truly the highest quality of patient care, which is my goal at the end of the day. Nurses see a wide variety of individuals, and no individual is the exact same when you go to treat them. Not every patient is going to have the exact same diagnosis, symptoms, or medication therapy as one another. This same principle applies to public health – not every patient has the same needs, access, or circumstances, and it is important for us as nurses to really take that into account and develop a unique care plan for each patient that actually works and accommodates for them. 

These factors can be on the individual, environmental, and/or societal levels. Individual factors are unique to each person and can include genetics, personal beliefs and culture, education level, finances how they perceive health and what it means to them, and many more. An individual’s environment also plays a huge role in their overall health. These factors include where they live, pollutants, housing and neighborhood conditions, water quality, food stability, etc. Societal factors include access to healthcare, transportation to places of healthcare, poverty/employment opportunities, cost of healthcare/insurance, stigmas, exposure to crime/violence, quality schooling, and the list can go on. These determinants of health are further influenced by political, economic, social, historical, and cultural forces, which we have seen to be present in healthcare since the beginning of time, and vulnerable and marginalized populations are those who suffer from it. These forces can create such strong barriers preventing many from getting basic healthcare, leaving a huge disproportion between populations of people. A current example of this is the COVID-19 pandemic, as individuals of marginalized and minority groups have been shown to be at a higher risk of getting sick and dying from COVID-19. For example, the policy of “essential workers” highlights this. Essential workers have been classified as industry workers, such as grocery stores for example. In many communities, these workers are those of vulnerable populations who have to go to work despite of the health risk to provide for their family. In turn, those individuals who were exposed to the public then have a much higher risk of getting sick. This pandemic shows how strong of an influence some social determinants of health can have on individuals.