The current status of health is highly reliant on a number of factors, which are linked to the everyday life of a population. The determinants of health include local policymaking, social factors, health services, individual behavior, and biology and genetics (Tang et al. 2017). However, they can have a different impact on various members of society, which involve infants, adolescents, adults with disabilities, and frail older people. The given essay will review the effect of biology and genetics on each member group and how different the influence can be.
Infants and adolescents are the only social groups who cannot directly impact and be fully responsible for their health status due to their dependency on the provider. Although policies, societal factors, and health services can be changed by mature adults, the biological and genetic elements of the body are unalterable (Smith et al. 2017). Thus, the given category of people possesses almost intact DNA, and they can only suffer from random inherited mutations. However, infants and adolescents are at the lowest risk of facing biology-related health issues due to their youth because genetic factors begin to become more problematic as a person gets older.
Frail older people are at high risk of suffering from biological health issues because of their age. The DNA structure is prone to get damaged and mutated due to prolonged exposure (Tang et al. 2017). This is the main reason for the frailness and vulnerability of older people to genetic factors because the genetic material gets altered by oxidants and ionizing radiation. In addition, biological factors can also be a problem in a certain number of people regardless of age, such as individuals with disabilities. Although a disability can be caused by accidents, a majority of cases are due to genetics (Forber-Pratt 2019). Inherited diseases and disability inclinations are the results of genetic transfer. Therefore, biological factors play a big role as a determinant of health in people with disabilities.
In conclusion, each group of society can suffer from genetic factors to various degrees. Infants and adolescent people are not prone to possess biology-related health issues, whereas the elderly and individuals with disabilities are directly influenced by them.
References
Forber-Pratt, A. J. (2019). (Re)defining disability culture: Perspectives from the Americans with Disabilities Act generation. Culture & Psychology, 25(2), 241-256.
Smith, L. A., Ullmann, J. F. P., Olson, H. E., Achkar, C. M. E., Truglio, G., Kelly, M., … Poduri, A. (2017). A model program for translational medicine in epilepsy genetics. Journal of Child Neurology, 32(4), 429-436.
Tang, M., Deng, Z., Li, B., Peng, Y., Song, M., & Liu, J. (2017). Circulating tumor DNA is effective for detection of KRAS mutation in colorectal cancer: A meta-analysis. The International Journal of Biological Markers, 32(4), 421-427.