Determinants of Health and Wellbeing

Social factors, cultural and religious beliefs are critical when considering inequalities in the determinants of health and well being.

Aethos training programme offers a step towards reducing inequalities. It addresses the fundamental importance of personal beliefs, for clients accessing health services, for front line providers delivering those services, and for educators.
 
Below the Iceberg

Our understanding of diversity may be the tip of the iceberg. Aspects of culture sometimes lie hidden below the iceberg’s upper surface.  These may include: philosophies about faith or consciousness, core beliefs about life and death, history and conflict, and generational differences. Such factors may influence behavioural strategies to address health and well being.

Peoples’ beliefs about the theories of illness causation influence their health seeking strategies and their access to services.

Our series of seminars and workshops enhance social inclusion, by raising awareness of cultural assumptions about symptoms, especially with new migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

These seminars provide evidence of training on equality and diversity, for teachers and health care staff.

They address one key aspect of equality and diversity: cultural, religious and spiritual beliefs, and the way these influence how people access health services, accept diagnosis of ill health, and concur with treatment strategies.

Our courses were developed for medical and allied health care professionals to offer an overview of existential beliefs of the human life cycle: conception, birth, women’s health, body, mental well-being, death, dying and beyond.

They explore cultural theories of illness causation, and investigate explanatory models for health and mental well-being.