Primary Source Analysis Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Primary Source Analysis - Research Paper Example He describes the rise of Christians against the Jews as an error in thinking and wonders whether was really inspired by God. Albeit of Aura wanted to portray that the attacks on Christian were not motivated by their duty to defend their religion, but it was out of pure greed for wealth. He claims that in all the successful expeditions the Christians took and shared the large amount of Jews wealth Ekkehard of Aura describes Emico, a Christian soldier as to be of ill morals and compares him to the biblical Saul whose main aim was to persecute the Christians. He describes expeditions over Emico’s leaders as inconsiderate and ruthless. Ekkehard states that the Christian’s were out to attack any Jew they came along with no consideration on their support of Christianity. He tries to bring out a point that, Christian’s goal was to destroy the Jews and rob them of their possessions. Ekkehard and Albert’s claims are somehow different from the letter of Aymeric to L ouis II of France. Aymeric letter’s was meant to put across a message of suffering the Christian’s were facing in the hands of the many organized Jews. The letter was written in such a way to convince the King to offer the Christians support as a fight back toward the many Jews. Aymeric portrays a weak Christian society against a large group of Jews. Albert and Ekkehard notes the Christian’s cruelty, lack of mercy and persecution of the Jews because of their own race. From their presentation of the message the two authors describes Christian’s acts towards the Jews with a lot of personal feelings attached. He portrays their support for the Jews especially where they use strong abusive words to describe the Christians as greedy, cruel, and merciless and error minded. Amyrec on the other side on his letter to the king of France is seen requesting on enforcement against the Jews. The attacks on the Jews that occurred during the first crusade were cruel and u nnecessary acts that have drawn the line between the future Catholics and Jews. But there is no clear evidence on whether the Catholics organized the crusades specifically targeting theJews or it what motivated by the need to rob them their wealth. Amyrec letter shows the catholic Christian’s request for assistance from the western world (France). If the attacks on the Jews originated from the western world, then this doesn’t display the so called a strong tradition of hatred to the Jews communities. If what Ekkehardof Aura witnessed is anything to go by then, it was wrong for very many innocent Jews to be killed on the eyes of the concerned Catholics, with no act to alter the situation, and that so many people were misled into doing injustices and enter into conflicts with strangers whom they had nothing to hold against, whose possessions made them a viable target for greedy and inhuman soldiers. The evidence portrayed by the following authors could install fear, misu nderstanding and hatred among the Jews and the Catholics but it’s not strong enough to claim that there is a tradition for the Jews people. Such claims on the part of the Jews sympathizers will arouse the negative sentiments toward the Christians as the Jews considered them as idolaters and for this reason they had no respect for the Christian’s symbols and religion at large. A large group of soldiers consisting of

Public Schools Sex Ed Teach Abstinence Only Research Paper

Public Schools Sex Ed Teach Abstinence Only - Research Paper Example Sex education got introduced into the American public school curriculum in the late 19th century, and continues to be a prime policy issue for the federal and state governments. The aim of this move by the government is to combat Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) and inculcate sexual morality by promoting abstinence. Over time, there has been further formalization of the abstinence agenda in public schools. In fact, only sex education programs that accentuated abstinence used to receive funding from the government, while the comprehensive programs that allowed safe sex with pregnancy prevention methods such as contraception were not funded by the government (Chisara, 2011, p. 23). In the present time, the government funds comprehensive sex education programs that promote safe sex and contraception among school-going children. This essay discusses the reasons why abstinence needs to be taught in public schools. One of the reasons why public schools should teach abstinence to their children is that it the surest way of protecting this future generation from acquiring diseases that would make them unproductive in the future. Avoidance of all forms of sex is the appropriate and effective method of reducing the rates new HIV/AIDS infections among the school going children. In this regard, Knox & Schacht (2010, p. 146) observe that abstinence sex education policies need to be strengthened to reduce the prevalence of STIs in the school-going age population because while the children make up only about 25 per cent of the sexually active people, they acquire approximately half of all new STIs every year (Knox & Schacht, 2010, p. 161). As a consequence, the school goers become less productive as some of them miss classes to seek treatment for STIs in the short-term, while a considerable number of them become unproductive members of

Role of Prosody in Language Acquisition

Role of Prosody in Language Acquisition Discuss the role of prosody (i.e. rhythm and intonation) in language acquisition, from early sound perception to sematic and syntactic development. From muffled sounds heard within the womb to singing our favorite songs by memory, we humans have the astounding ability to acquire language. The remarkable thing is that we are born without full-blown language comprehension and production. How is it then that we steadily progress into competent speakers of our mother tongue? A big part lies in the prosody of our native language. Although babies may not be able to speak, they begin to learn about language prenatally. Given that our auditory system is well developed in the womb, a fetus can process sounds as early as 28 weeks of gestation, according to Fernald in 2001 and Saffran and colleagues in 2006 (as cited in Brooks Kempe, 2012, pg.25). While speech sounds are muffled because the fetus is enclosed within the womb, preventing proper individual phoneme identification, there is still perception of rhythm and intonation (Brooks Kempe, 2012, pg.25). Rhythm and intonation are components of prosody, along with other sound features such as stress, pitch, loudness, and duration (Erekson, 2010, pg.80). Newborns are then able to gain prenatal language experience with sounds made by their mothers and other people close by (Brooks Kempe, 2012, pg.25). Babies even have a preference for sounds that became familiar when they were in the womb. In a study by Mehler and colleagues in 1988 it was found that prenatal expe rience allowed babies to distinguish their native language from a foreign language (Brooks Kempe, 2012, g.28). In their study, which utilized sucking rate, French newborns could tell French sentences apart from Russian sentences, even when the sentences were passed through a low-pass filter to make them sound like they would be heard from within the womb (Brooks Kempe, 2012, pg.28). This study showed that newborn infants are sensitive to prosodic characteristics of language (Brooks Kempe, 2012, pg.28). Prosody has important implications in language acquisition even before an infant is born but also continues to be an essential tool throughout their early years when they begin to engage with more experience speakers. Although infants pay attention to their surroundings and are taking in all the different sounds they hear, they are not the only active participants. When people interact with babies, they do not treat them in the same manner they would treat older children or adults. Instead, they expose them to a very distinct aspect of language known as infant-directed speech (IDS) or â€Å"motherese† (Goswami, 2008, pg.148). This special register helps facilitate language learning because of its exaggerated prosodic nature; this emphasizes the boundaries between words and phrases, thus making segmentation of the speech stream easier for babies (Goswami, 2008, pg.148). According to Karmiloff and Karmiloff-Smith in 2001 baby humans learn the rhythm of their native languages from birth to 2 months of age (as cited in Falk, 2004, pg.495). During this time infants pay special attention to their language input and are particularly interested in IDS, which is characterized by simplified vocabular y, repetition, exaggerated vowels, higher tone, wider range of tone, and a slower tempo (Falk, 2004, pg. 495). These are important differences infants seem particularly sensitive to at young ages when prosody plays such a key in language acquisition. Aside from having characteristics based on the prosody of speech to help infants learn their native languages, IDS seems to be universal; it is seen in all languages in cultures, implying that this prosodic way of speaking serves a developmental purpose (Goswami, 2008, pg. 154). Adults break down the language for babies to understand better, and doing so almost instinctively, showing the intuitiveness prosody has in language comprehension and production. Prosody also helps babies learn a thing or two about syntax early on. According to Levitt in 1993, at 10 months infants start to babble in rhythms that are similar to the prosody of their language structure (as cited in Falk, 2004, pg.496). Karmiloff and Karmiloff-Smith say this may be due to the vocal turn-taking that mothers and their babies engage in, helping the babies learn the â€Å"rule† that conversationalists take turns speaking, as seen in their research in 2001 (as cited in Falk, 2004, pg.496). Snowdon (1990) states that this â€Å"social syntax† may help babies learn other rules that are preliminary to learning syntax, the proper arrangement of elements within sentences (as cited in Falk, 2004, pg.496). IDS therefore helps teach babies syntax through phonological bootstrapping, which is fulfilled by paying attention to the correlations between the prosodic cues of IDS and linguistic categories, according to the works of Burnham et al. in 2002, Gleitman Warn er in 1982, Morgan in 1986 and Morgan Demuth in 1996 (as cited in Falk, 2004, pg.496). An infant’s perception of prosodic cues in relation with linguistic categories is essential to learn about phonology, the boundaries between words or phrases in their native tongue, and syntax (Falk, 2004, pg.496). Prosody not only matters when it comes to learning the music of the first language learned but also seems to help teach other components of the language as well. As infants grow older and gain more experience with language, they continue a path towards language mastery and more complicated language use. While young babies use prosody to help tell words apart, it isn’t until they get older that prosody is fully used to tell syntactic relationships (Speer Ito, 2009, pg.94). However, there is mixed research as to when exactly children begin to use prosody to understand ambiguous sentences (Speer Ito, 2009, pg.94). A study in 2008 by Snedeker and Yuan found that children used prosodic phrasings of sentences to the syntax ‘correctly’ and perform an instrumental action (as cited in Speer Ito, 2009, pg.97-98). In their study they did a toy-moving scenario using sentences, such as ‘You can tap the frog with the flower’, with two disambiguating phrasings (Speer Ito, 2009, pg.97). Regardless of the prosodic phrasing, such as [You can tap the frog] [with the flower] versus [You can tap] [the frog with the flower], re sults showed that the children used the location of prosodic boundaries to interpret the correct syntax of the sentences (Speer Ito, 2009, pg.97). Additionally, prosody seems to help syntactic acquisition early on. In a study in 2014 by Hawthorne and Gerken, it was found that 19 month old infants treated prosodically-grouped words as more cohesive and constituent-like than words that straddled a prosodic boundary (pg.420). Because syntactic constituency, groups of words that serve as cohesive units in sentences, is an important part in the early levels of syntax acquisition, prosody is seen as essential concept in language acquisition as a result (Hawthorne Gerken, 2014, pg.420). Although it may be debatable when syntax development exactly begins, a big puzzle piece to figure it out lies in prosody. Prosody continues to help humans from infancy to childhood not only in the syntax of their language but also the semantics. In a study by Nygaard et al in 2008 it was investigated whether speakers were able to successfully make prosodic correlates to meaning across semantic domains and if they used these cues to interpret meaning of novel words (pg.127). The study showed that listeners were able to match new words with their proper meaning significantly more if the prosody used matched the word correctly (Nygaard et al., 2009, pg.127). With their findings, Nygaard and colleagues were able to support that speech has reliable prosodic markers to word meaning and that listeners use the prosodic cues of words to differentiate their meanings (Nygaard et al., 2009, pg.127). New research is also finding prosody to be an essential component for semantic comprehension and development in children. It was previously suggested that children did not utilize prosody to figure out the meanings of n ew words. This was due to studies like Sasso’s 2003 investigation using children age 4 years old and adults, where she found that the children did not readily use prosodic cues to determine the meaning of a new word like the adults did, even when instructed to do so (Sasso, 2003). However, recently in 2011, Herold and colleagues investigated whether children utilized prosodic correlates to word meaning when interpreting new words (Herold et al., 2011, pg.229). They sought to examine if children would interpret a word spoken in a deep, loud, slow voice as referring to something larger than a word said in a high, quiet, and fast voice (Herold et al., 2011, pg.229). It was found that by 5 years old children were successfully utilizing prosody to interpret meaning (Herold et al., 2011, pg. 236). In addition, there were differences in performances between 4 year old and 5 year old participants, suggesting a developmental change in children’s ability to use prosodic cues to infer meaning (Herold et al., 2011, pg.236). Herold and colleagues believed this may do to 4 year olds not yet able to understand that prosody can be used as a tool for novel word interpretation due to insufficient experience with prosodic information and meaning relations (Herold et al., 2011, pg. 236-237). While semantic development in children does not seem to be fully and effectively utilized before age 5, it seems to be on meet a critical transition at this point after children have a certain amount of exposure to their native language. Many studies in linguistics and psychology demonstrate the multiple roles that prosody plays in the acquisition of language from prenatal infants to adults with fluency of their native language. What begins as sound that catches the interest of prenatal humans steadily becomes sound that serve a purpose in language comprehension. While research continues to explore the implications of prosody, there is no denying that it plays a vital and fundamental part in human language. References Brooks, P., Kempe, V. (2012). Language Development (pp. xv-383). Chichester: BPS Blackwell. Erekson, J. (2010). Prosody and Interpretation. Reading Horizons, 50(2), 80-98. Retrieved April 23, 2015, from http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/reading_horizons/vol50/iss2/3 Falk, D. (2004). Prelinguistic Evolution in Early Hominins: Whence Motherese? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27(4), 491-541. Retrieved April 23, 2015, from http://journals.cambridge.org.ezp.lib.rochester.edu/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=onlineaid=276842fileId=S0140525X04000111 Goswami, U. (2008). Cognitive Development: The Learning Brain (p. 457). Hove: Psychology Press. Hawthorne, K., Gerken, L. (2014). From pauses to clauses: Prosody facilitates learning of syntactic constituency. Cognition, 133(2), 420-428. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2014.07.013 Herold, D., Nygaard, L., Chicos, K., Namy, L. (2011). The developing role of prosody in novel word interpretation. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 108(2), 229-241. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2010.09.005 Nygaard, L., Herold, D., Namy, L. (2009). The Semantics of Prosody: Acoustic and Perceptual Evidence of Prosodic Correlates to Word Meaning. Cognitive Science, 33(1), 127-146. doi:10.1111/j.1551-6709.2008.01007.x Sasso, D. S. (2003). The developing role of prosody in novel word comprehension. (Order No. 1413020, Emory University). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, 46-46 p. Retrieved April 24, 2015, from http://search.proquest.com/docview/250019098?accountid=13567 Speer, S., Ito, K. (2009). Prosody in First Language Acquisition Acquiring Intonation as a Tool to Organize Information in Conversation. Language and Linguistics Compass, 3(1), 90-110. Retrieved April 24, 2015, from http://linguistics.osu.edu/files/Publication-Prosody in First Language Acquisition.pdf

Technologys Impact on Children With Communication Disorders Essay

Technology's Impact on Children With Communication Disorders â€Å"†¦If all of my possessions were taken from me with one exception, I would choose the power of communication, for by it I would regain all the rest. Daniel Webster† (Lloyd, Fuller, and Arvidson 1). Imagine that you were born one hundred years ago and as you grew, you never learned to talk, or at the very most, could only communicate in two or three word sentences. What would you do? How would you make your wishes known to those around you? Remember, this is one hundred years ago and you didn’t have computers or other augmentative devices to â€Å"talk† with. Perhaps you are able to use your hands to write, but often communication disorders are joined with other problems like Down syndrome, autism, or cerebral palsy, all of which make it more difficult to control your hands. Be thankful that you live in the twenty-first century, where computers can help communicate as well as teach children with these disorders how to survive within a communicating world. I will discuss the impact, effects, and Christian perspective of technology on communication disorders. Impact of technology on children with communication disorders A communication disorder is described as, â€Å"‘an impairment in the ability to receive, send, process, and comprehend concepts or verbal, nonverbal and graphic symbol systems [ASHA, 1993, p. 40]’† (Owens, Metz, and Haas 14). Several years ago, people with communication disorders could get therapy to learn how to talk if they were able, but there wasn’t much that could be done if it was physically impossible to say the speech sounds. This person would have to go through life trying to communicate by hand signals, writing, and maybe a few choice wo... ...Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.; Baltimore, 1992. 175-202. Hjelmquist, Erland. â€Å"Form and Meaning in Alternative Language Development.† Augmentative and Alternative Communication. Whurr Publishers; London, 1999. 31-39. Lloyd, Lyle L.; Fuller, Donald R.; and Helen H. Arvidson. Augmentative and Alternative Communication. Allyn and Bacon; Boston, 1997. Nelson, Lauren I. And Julie J. Masterson. â€Å"Computer technology: Creative interfaces in service delivery. Topics in Lavguahe Disorders v19 n3, May 1999, 67-86. Owens, Robert E., jr.; Metz, Dale Evan; and Adelaide Haas. Introduction to Communication Disorders: A Life Span Perspective. Allyn and Bacon; Boston, 2000. Yorkston, Kathryn M.; Beukelman, David R.; Strand, Edythe A.; and Kathleen R. Bell. Management of Motor Speech Disorders in Children and Adults. Pro-Ed Publishers; Austin, Texas, 1999.

Braking History Essay

In a little over a hundred years since the automobile took hold of people’s imagination, technologies designed to make them accelerate faster and reach higher speeds have evolved with a fury. The brakes that were used to decelerate vehicles just over a hundred years ago (when cars were first invented) has evolved from plain wooden blocks to discs that are monitored by Anti-lock Brake Systems and Electronic Braking Distribution systems. The earliest braking system that used by vehicles consisted of nothing more than a block of wood and a lever system. The wood brake system worked fine in conjunction with early vehicles that were equipped with steel rimmed wheels. However, when the Michelin brothers started to replace steel rimmed wheels with rubber tires on most vehicles towards late 1890s, the wood block braking system just does not create enough friction with rubber. Since the need for a new method of braking was necessary in order to replace the old wood block braking system, inventors scrambled for new ideas. The French manufacturer Louis Renault took crude concepts of inventors before him and developed method: The drum based braking system. Basically, the system involved a single flexible stainless-steel band, wrapped around a drum on the rear axle. When the driver engaged the brake, the band would apply pressure to the drum and car to come to a stop. However, the drum braking system did have a number of problems. Since the drum brakes were external, the exposer caused a very rapid wear-out of the system and had to be replaced often. The band itself would sometimes unwrap on hills and proved to be very unsafe for the driver and passengers. Even though people came up with ideas to internally place the brakes, the era of mechanically-activated brakes was coming to an end. In 1918, A four-wheel hydraulic-brake system was invented by Malcolm Loughead. This system used fluids to transfer the force on the pressed pedal to the pistons and then to the brake shoes. In other words, it was the enhanced drum based system added with power support. The system quickly became popular due to the fact that it is much easier to operate and more effective than mechanical systems. Thus, it was adapted quickly by most of the automotive world. As the vehicles evolved to be heavier and faster, heat distribution started to become a major problem for the drum hydraulic-brake system due to increased friction. Disc brake system that was made from iron was invented to solve the problem. In order to stop the car, the brake pads are squeezed by a calliper which is pressured by the hydraulic, and then the discs are squeezed by the braking pads. Lining was placed on the braking pads to reduce the noise when the metal came in contact. This was as far as the braking system went in terms of mechanics. However, additional features such as the ABS (Anti-Lock Brakes), EBS (Electronic Braking system), and EBD (Electronic Braking Distribution) were implemented to further enhance the performance and safety of brakes. Since the industry was constantly seeking for replacements and innovations, achieving â€Å"the Minimum Winning Game† (MWG) is extremely important in not only the auto industry, but any high-technology ventures in general. By definition, the â€Å"Minimum Winning Game† is: Defining the first major market opportunity that is limited enough to provide a clear target for technology and product development efforts in the short-to-medium term, and sufficiently large that successfully pursuing it provides a foundation for long-term corporate development. Defining the â€Å"Minimum Winning Game† of any new breaking system is a difficult yet critical responsibility of management to keep the new innovation focused and able to learn from its ongoing efforts in the face of rapidly evolving technological and market uncertainties. Balancing a combination of the three drivers is essential in achieving the â€Å"Minimum Winning Game†. The drivers are: technology development, product development, and strategy development. Effectively pursuing these drivers will contribute positively, but allowing one to become the sole driver is likely to derail the venture from the path toward its Minimum Winning Game. Since braking technology is in such high-tech environments the pace of change is extreme. Instilling strategic discipline early on can prevent the new innovation of brakes to fall into the â€Å"Field of Dreams† trap: building the technology and it will become useful, while simultaneously increase the chances of its success.

Social Determinants

Health and Wealth The statement, â€Å"people with more money live longer than those who are poor because rich people can afford better health care services† is inadequate. It leaves me to believe that income and health care are the only things that determine one’s health. An individual’s income is one of the social determinants of health that contributes to a person’s own health and has a variety of effects on an individual. Social determinants of health can be defined as the â€Å"economic and social conditions that influence the health of individuals, communities, and jurisdictions as a whole† (Raphael, 2004).The knowledge of the social determinants of health has gone through a vast amount of changes in perspectives as to how society decides to define health. My experiences and readings thus far have not only expanded my understanding of health, but also the economic and social conditions affecting health. From my own personal experiences, I have seen differences between the socioeconomic classes of individuals and their ability to access healthcare. Due to the fact that I am Vietnamese, I have visited Vietnam numerous times and have seen how individuals have lived a very unhealthy lifestyle such as eating the wrong foods and lack of exercising.Before moving to Canada, my parents lived in Vietnam and described how most individuals who were always outside on the streets were often sick and did not know how to take care of themselves because of their lack of knowledge of health. At first I believed that this was due to the lifestyle choices they made, however, studies have shown that these lifestyle choices do not go far in determining health status in contrast to the impact of the social determinants of health.In addition to these studies, when I recently visited Vietnam, I saw that the environment they were living in reflected their income level and health status. According to Raphael (2004), â€Å"socioeconomic status and income status are powerful predictors of health as they serve as indicators of material advantage or disadvantage that accumulate over the lifespan† (75). According to Raphael (2004), â€Å"Health differences among Canadians result primarily from experiences of qualitatively different environments associated with the social determinants of health† (p. 0). Income status is one of the social determinants of health that determines the quality of life associated with working conditions, employment, food security, and education. Usually, when an individual has grown up in a poor environment with inaccessibility to healthcare, their future may already be predetermined for them. In the film â€Å"Unnatural Causes† (California Newsreel, 2008), a woman residing in District 5, named Mary Turner lives in a very poor neighbourhood with three teenage daughters and a disabled husband.In addition to these complications, Mary also has health problems of her own that prevent her from working and making money for her family, which results in a very low income. She cannot afford healthy food because they are generally more expensive, and therefore her family eats meals that are unhealthy and inexpensive. In the film, Mary expresses the fact that â€Å"disadvantaged people are unhealthy. † Out of the four neighbourhoods studied in the film, District 5 is the poorest; this reflects the idea that there is an unequal distribution of resources and income among the population.As McQuaig & Brooks (2010) explains, â€Å"simply living in an unequal society puts one at greater risk of experiencing a wide range of health problems and social dysfunction† (p. 82). This simply explains that one’s health is directly proportional to their income status and overall, the resources that they do or do not have. The relationship between health and wealth should be explained in relation to the social determinants of health. As this relationship becomes cleare r, as does the fact that rich people live longer because they can afford health care in comparison to less wealthy people.References California Newsreel and Vital Pictures (2008). Unnatural Causes. United States: California Newsreel. McQuaid, L. & Brooks, N (2010). Why billionaires are bad for your health. In the Trouble with Billionaires. Toronto: Viking Canada, ISBN 9780670064199, pp. 149-169 of 272. Raphael, D. (2004). Introduction to the Social Determinants of Health. In D. Raphael (Ed. ) The Social Determinants of Health: Canadian Perspectives, Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc. pp. 1-19 of 435. ISBN 1551302373 Social Determinants Describe what is meant by the term `social determinants of health'. Discuss the evidence of how work has an impact on health. Outline the implications for nursing practice. Introduction The aim of this assignment is to discuss the evidence of the impacts that work can have on an individual's health. Health has been defined as a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity (World Health Organisation – WHO, 1946). Therefore, health is viewed as a much broader concept in that it includes social wellbeing.It has long been recognised that social determinants can influence health. There are many social determinants of health, for example food, stress, early life, transport, social gradient, unemployment, social support, addiction and social exclusion. However, the intention of this assignment is to discuss the evidence of the impact of work, as a social determinant, on health. Secondly, this assignment will explore the wo rk of Babbage, Taylorism and Fordism in relation to the influence on the development of work.The discussion will also include how work within the UK has changed over the last 20 to the 30 years and a description and evidence of the effects of paid and unpaid work as well as the boundaries between the two will also be illustrated. Lastly, the implications of work as a social determinant of health for nursing practice will be outlined. Main body Social Determinants of Health Social determinants of health are the economic and social conditions under which individual's live which can determine their health.WHO (1946) have identified ten different social determinants (stated in the introduction) of health that can all have an effect on a person's physical and mental wellbeing. The identification and research of social determinants of health have helped extend awareness and encourage action from healthcare workers and advocates. According to Drever and Whitehead (1997) in studies of socia l inequalities of health, the most frequently used indirect indicators of social and economic conditions are an individual's occupation, education or income and how these factors influence their lifestyle and wellbeing. Social Determinants Health and Wealth The statement, â€Å"people with more money live longer than those who are poor because rich people can afford better health care services† is inadequate. It leaves me to believe that income and health care are the only things that determine one’s health. An individual’s income is one of the social determinants of health that contributes to a person’s own health and has a variety of effects on an individual. Social determinants of health can be defined as the â€Å"economic and social conditions that influence the health of individuals, communities, and jurisdictions as a whole† (Raphael, 2004).The knowledge of the social determinants of health has gone through a vast amount of changes in perspectives as to how society decides to define health. My experiences and readings thus far have not only expanded my understanding of health, but also the economic and social conditions affecting health. From my own personal experiences, I have seen differences between the socioeconomic classes of individuals and their ability to access healthcare. Due to the fact that I am Vietnamese, I have visited Vietnam numerous times and have seen how individuals have lived a very unhealthy lifestyle such as eating the wrong foods and lack of exercising.Before moving to Canada, my parents lived in Vietnam and described how most individuals who were always outside on the streets were often sick and did not know how to take care of themselves because of their lack of knowledge of health. At first I believed that this was due to the lifestyle choices they made, however, studies have shown that these lifestyle choices do not go far in determining health status in contrast to the impact of the social determinants of health.In addition to these studies, when I recently visited Vietnam, I saw that the environment they were living in reflected their income level and health status. According to Raphael (2004), â€Å"socioeconomic status and income status are powerful predictors of health as they serve as indicators of material advantage or disadvantage that accumulate over the lifespan† (75). According to Raphael (2004), â€Å"Health differences among Canadians result primarily from experiences of qualitatively different environments associated with the social determinants of health† (p. 0). Income status is one of the social determinants of health that determines the quality of life associated with working conditions, employment, food security, and education. Usually, when an individual has grown up in a poor environment with inaccessibility to healthcare, their future may already be predetermined for them. In the film â€Å"Unnatural Causes† (California Newsreel, 2008), a woman residing in District 5, named Mary Turner lives in a very poor neighbourhood with three teenage daughters and a disabled husband.In addition to these complications, Mary also has health problems of her own that prevent her from working and making money for her family, which results in a very low income. She cannot afford healthy food because they are generally more expensive, and therefore her family eats meals that are unhealthy and inexpensive. In the film, Mary expresses the fact that â€Å"disadvantaged people are unhealthy. † Out of the four neighbourhoods studied in the film, District 5 is the poorest; this reflects the idea that there is an unequal distribution of resources and income among the population.As McQuaig & Brooks (2010) explains, â€Å"simply living in an unequal society puts one at greater risk of experiencing a wide range of health problems and social dysfunction† (p. 82). This simply explains that one’s health is directly proportional to their income status and overall, the resources that they do or do not have. The relationship between health and wealth should be explained in relation to the social determinants of health. As this relationship becomes cleare r, as does the fact that rich people live longer because they can afford health care in comparison to less wealthy people.References California Newsreel and Vital Pictures (2008). Unnatural Causes. United States: California Newsreel. McQuaid, L. & Brooks, N (2010). Why billionaires are bad for your health. In the Trouble with Billionaires. Toronto: Viking Canada, ISBN 9780670064199, pp. 149-169 of 272. Raphael, D. (2004). Introduction to the Social Determinants of Health. In D. Raphael (Ed. ) The Social Determinants of Health: Canadian Perspectives, Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc. pp. 1-19 of 435. ISBN 1551302373