Effutu-Ewutu-Senya District In The Central Region, Ghana

Evans and Stoddart (1990,1994) provide a clear model for describing disease, health and well-being and their determinants. In their model, disease influences health that functions to influence well-being, of these three medical care is related most naturally, only to disease. Other variables considered were economic prosperity, individual behaviour, biology and genetic endowment as well as the physical and social environments. Frank (1995, 233-237) asserted that medical care is not necessarily the best investment in a society’s health and productivity. Certain factors including the following were identified. Firstly, macro socio-economic and cultural factors that influence population health; for example, unequal distribution of income could be related to health. Secondly, micro level factors in individuals' immediate social environment that influences health such as social position, socio-economic status, stress and/or coping skills. Thirdly, new biologic pathways for socially mediated health effects, for instance, if an individual’s position in the social hierarchy is related to many different types illness, then perhaps there are generic biologic causal mechanisms or pathways that translate social environmental inputs into adverse body responses. Lastly, the importance of early childhood development was incorporated into the analysis, arguing that, how children are cared for at an early age influences basic capacities and thus health, through out their life cycle. These additional factors (socio-economic and cultural changes affecting household’s and community’s health status) have paved the way for social scientists to undertake an in-depth research into the determinants of health. Social scientists have developed volumes of material on human societies, with much of it peripheral to health or other programmatic interventions. However, in most African countries, of which Ghana is no exception, there exist clearly, a gap in accessibility and applicability between  these expansive multi-faceted studies of human behaviour and the immediate focussed needs of disease control programs and other health and welfare activities. Within the social sciences, approaches range from highly technical structured quantitative models of economics to the flexible "grounded theory” of anthropologists. These different spheres of analysis will help us to attain a more definitive approach to health issues. The ideal approach will be an attempt to propose a program of applied studies to understand the process by which inputs to households become outcomes in terms of health improvements.