Health and Health Care
The aim of this assignment is to critically assess, from a social determinants of health perspective, health information provided to the public by the Canadian government.

The focus of your analysis will be the Public Health Agency of Canada’s (PHAC) website and this information it provides on chronic degenerative disease, specifically the recommendations listed under “Minimizing the Risks of Cardiovascular Disease.” The webpage can be accessed at:

https://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/cd-mc/cvd-mcv/risk-risques-eng.php

On this page, PHAC identifies eight “modifiable” risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease (smoking, lack of exercise, unhealthy eating, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, sodium, stress, diabetes). Your task in this assignment is to produce a similar information sheet, but one that highlights risk factors for CVD from a social determinants of health framework, identifying five significant socio-economic “risk” factors for CVD. Your information pages, like PHAC’s webpage, should include a brief introductory statement and a “What can you do” section at the end of the discussion.

To develop this information sheet, you will need to research the connections between CVD and factors such as income/class, gender, race, Aboriginal status, etc., locating a minimum of five scholarly sources (beyond course readings) upon which you will base the information that you provide on socio-economic risk factors. Students should use Social Science Abstracts or Sociological Abstracts to locate relevant articles to support points presented in your information sheet.

The information sheet that you submit for this assignment should be structured much the same as PHAC website. It should contain:

• a brief introduction (100 words) on the social determinants of CVD
• five separate sections where you discuss a specific socio-economic risk factor for CVD. Each of these sections should be clearly identified with a heading. (250 words each section)
• a final “What can you do” section that outlines strategies for addressing the socio-economic risk factors associated with CVD (150 words)
Remember, that you are writing this paper as informational pages geared to the public, so be sure to consider your audience when framing your discussion.