Is our healthcare affected by where we live?

Just as conditions within our homes have important implications for our health, conditions in the neighborhoods surrounding our homes also can have major health effects. Social and economic features of neighborhoods have been linked with mortality, general health status, disability, birth outcomes, chronic conditions, health behaviors and other risk factors for chronic disease, as well as with mental health, injuries, violence and other important health indicators. Social inequalities such as poverty are linked to unhealthy behaviours like smoking, poor diet and lack of exercise. Therefore the people who you live near, and the area in which you live can affect your health. This can be for good and for bad. Changes can reduce these differences and make it easier for people to make the choices that help them avoid getting sick in the first place.

The ads and t.v. shows we watch influence the things we do, eat and drink. These things therefore effect our health. It happens without us even realising. We assume that we can tune most of it out. If we don't pay attention to the ads, then they won't have that much of an effect on our behaviour. However this is most certainly not the case. In 2010, Melanie Dempsey and Andrew Mitchell

did a study that not only do ads tell us what a product or service is about, they have an effect on our mood and our feelings. They play on our emotions to make you feel a certain way. If an ad is a happy ad with Flowers and rainbows your brain recognises the product then as a happy and therefore good product. This can mean that you could be buying a product that is bad for you but you have been lead to believe by the ads around you that it is a good product. 

References:www.psychologytoday.com Picture from: www.wherewelive.com