determinants of health

Left alone in a storm of stress

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By Natalia Braun, September 2019

“When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.”

Alexander Den Heijer

We are living in an age of stress. The very word ‘stress’ has become an everyday, unavoidable companion. In recent decades, our “stress (or allostatic) loads” have risen starkly. Today’s individuals increasingly suffer from what military has called VUCA: volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.1 We struggle with non-stop changes and transformations without regaining equilibrium, maintaining pathological stress levels.

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Hungry in hospital: Parents go without meals as hospitals pinch pennies

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by Rebekah Graham, February 2019

Addressing the social injustices that underpin health issues has become a priority of growing urgency for socially-responsive health psychologists. Alongside growing inequality across the globe, the issue of food insecurity has become more important. In Aotearoa (New Zealand), Rebekah Graham’s research on the everyday experiences of families facing food insecurity highlights food as an important social determinant of health. In this post, she considers an aspect of these families’ experiences that has been taken-for-granted in health: what happens when a child goes to hospital?

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