ABSTRACT
The social determinants of health impact through three key pathways: material, behavioural and psychosocial. This chapter focuses on some of the psychosocial effects of improving three social determinants of health: early years’ experiences, quality of work and income. Effective policies and interventions to improve early years’ experiences, through improving maternal mental health and utilizing evidence-based programmes such as Incredible Years, the Family Nurse Partnership or Triple P to improve parenting and child/parent interaction, will reduce negative impacts on health through psychosocial pathways. Poor-quality work can lead to low self-esteem. Efforts to improve job quality, security of contracts and fair pay are required. Although there are scattered examples of good working environments with secure contracts, there have been no significant improvements. Legislation may be required to have a significant impact on improving the working lives of individuals. To support psychosocial health, efforts to increase the minimum wage are also needed, to ensure that people are earning a level sufficient for healthy living. At present the minimum wage increases promised for the UK will be insufficient to meet the costs of living.
