MOI UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF
ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
DEPARTMENT OF
PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY

NAME:

OMONDI STEPHENE

REG NO:

SW/64/14

COURSE TITLE:
COURSE CODE:
LECTURER:
DATE

SOCIAL WORK
SWK 324
MRS.WANGUI

TASK:

TAKE AWAY

ACADEMIC YEAR:

2015/2016, 2nd semester

SIGNATURE

Question:
DISCUSS THE LINKAGE BETWEEN SOCIAL WORK HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT,THE
INFLUENCE OF HEALTH IN DEVELOPMENT AND THE ECONOMIC COST OF DISEASES.

INTRODUCTION
The social worker response to such devastation ranged from medical and
environmental actions, such as managing infectious disease threats and access to
clean water, to therapy and care assistance, such as grief counseling and assisting
with new placements in mental health and long-term care facilities. However, as the
field of social work evolved, its early partnership with public health became

obscured, perhaps due to an emphasis on therapy and case management for the
individual in social work education programs. Of the 500,000 social workers in the
United States, the majority work in healthcare settings, but only a small minority are
considered public health social workers, Ruth notes. But many healthcare social
workers may be practicing public health without full awareness and without
recognition (Ruth & Sisco, 2008). For example, social workers often lead prevention
and health promotion efforts in field such as HIV/AIDS, child welfare, and
gerontology.
While developmental social work, which is also known as the social development
approach to social work, emphasizes the role of social investment in professional
practice. These investments meet the material needs of social works clients and
facilitate their full integration into the social and economic life of the community.
Developmental social workers believe that client strengths and capabilities need to
be augmented with public resources and services if those served by the profession
are to live productive and fulfilling lives. Although developmental social work is
inspired by international innovations, particularly in the developing countries, the
book shows that it also has relevance to the United States and other Western
nations. It also contends that developmental social work practice is not confined to
community organization or other macro-practice interventions, and that
developmental ideas can be implemented in mainstream fields of social work
practice such as child welfare, mental health, aging, social assistance and
correctional social work. The editors and contributors to this book (most of whom
are associated with the School of Social Welfare at the University of California,
Berkeley) offer a highly original exposition of developmental social work theory and
practice. They draw widely on innovative examples from the United States and
other countries to show how developmental ideas can be implemented in everyday
social work practice.

Economic growth and health

Economic growth and the financial prosperity of a nation are proven to have a
positive effect on population health. The causative paths that lead from increased
wealth to improvements in health are well understood and broadly recognized.
Populations with greater economic opportunities tend to have ready access to
quality healthcare, less exposure to environmental hazards, better access to clean
water, and improved opportunities to develop better preventative behavior
patterns. This is perhaps most starkly illustrated by the changes seen in life
expectancy following the industrial revolution, and the more recent improvements
in child survival in West Africa.
While being richer does lead to health improvements, it is also true that there is a
causative relationship in the other direction too. Health improvements lead to
increased wealth and poverty reduction in four ways: Firstly, healthier populations
are more economically productive; secondly, proactive healthcare leads to decrease

in many of the additive healthcare costs associated with lack of care (treating
opportunistic infections in the case of HIV for example); thirdly, improved health
represents a real economic and developmental outcome in-and-of itself and finally,
healthcare spending capitalizes on the Keynesian 'economic multiplier' effect.
Employed healthcare workers spend their salaries on goods and services across
multiple sectors of the economy, and public sector healthcare expenditures are
often spent purchasing healthcare equipment and other goods and services from
the private sector. The recipients of this spending, in turn, spend money across
multiple sectors in the economy, and so on. Ultimately, this leads to an increase in
the aggregate demand in the economy as a whole; this is particularly powerful if the
original money comes from an outside source, like a multilateral donor. It is worth
noting that this economic multiplier effect is lost or reduced where donor fund
restrictions are in place, requiring that a significant portion of the donor funds be
spent on goods and services provided by suppliers from the donor country. In the
case of the Mozambique floods in 2000, medical volunteers had to buy Harley
Davidson motorbikes, as these were the only US-made bikes that were available at
short notice. Donor fund restrictions might be significantly reduced as donor
countries increasingly recognize the potential of both providing immediate aid and
contributing to the increase in aggregate demand within the local economy within
which they are working.
This bidirectional causative relationship between economic growth and health
improvement presents an opportunity for a self-enforcing spiral that perpetuates
itself either upwards or downwards. Missed opportunities to invest in cost-effective
measures to combat disease at a population level should therefore be recognized as
a major threat to health and development in general.
In the USA it has been estimated that the increase in life expectancy between 1970
and 2000 contributed an additional USD 3.2 trillion per year to the national
economy (after accounting for increased healthcare costs during that period). In fact
half of the overall economic growth in the USA during the last century can be
attributed to improvements in health, as for every additional year of education
attained through improved health status, a 15% higher starting wage and a
doubling of the rate of subsequent salary increase was attained. In poor countries, a
40% increase in life expectancy is associated with a 1.4% increase in GDP per
capita, and malnutrition world-wide impacts global GDP negatively by up to 4.7%.
Half the difference between the rate of economic growth of the least developed
nations in Africa and that of the high-growth countries of East Asia can be ascribed
to a combination of disease, demography and geography.

Ill-health and its economic consequences

In order to articulate the possible ways in which disease or injury may lead to
economics losses, it is necessary to start by considering what it is that people or
societies value. According to welfare economic theory, and subject to various
constraints including income and time, individuals or populations seek to maximize
utility (the term economists use to describe economic welfare). They do this by
combining to best effect their consumption of a range of goods and services - some
of which can be bought and sold (including health care), and some of which cannot
but nevertheless have discernible value (e.g. home-grown produce that is directly
consumed rather than sold). In addition to the consumption of goods and services,
individuals or populations also generate utility via other means, such as taking care
of others (without financial compensation), and spending time with family and
friends or in other forms of leisure.
Health contributes to individual utility or social welfare in three ways. First, people
prefer to be more healthy than less healthy (i.e. health directly affects utility). In
economic terms, it is an argument in the utility or social welfare function. Second,
the enjoyment of consumption of other goods and services is partly influenced by
the level of health (i.e. marginal utility derived from consumption is partly a function
of health status). Third, without good health other economic objectives, such as
producing income that allows people to consume market goods, stand to be
compromised; in other words, it is instrumental to an individual's or community's
capability to undertake desired activities or functions (Sen, 1985). One qualification
that needs to be made is that while the consumption of most types of goods and
services yields welfare directly, the consumption of health goods and services does
not. People would prefer not to incur these expenses in terms of money and time,
but do so because they believe it will protect or promote their health. Accordingly,
the key direct determinants of economic welfare are the consumption of 'nonhealth' goods and services, leisure, and health status.
On the basis of this standard framework - for a formal exposition, it is possible to
identify a number of ways in which ill-health could negatively influence the choices
and preferences upon which different economic agents seek to maximize utility. The
specific channels through which these consequences of disease or injury impact
households, firms and governments are expected to differ somewhat, and are
discussed at length in Section 4 of this guide. Here, we provide a brief summary of
the main channels and impacts:
Households: The impact of ill-health on a household can be measured in terms of its
impact on the consumption of non-health goods and services (market and nonmarket), leisure, health status - which represent the essential components of
welfare, as explained above - or in terms of the overall change in welfare. The
mechanisms through which it influences current and future consumption are
manifold. For example, and particularly in lower-income countries with a high
proportion of direct out-of-pocket health spending, ill-health will drive up household
consumption of health-related services and goods at the expense of non-health
goods and services. By increasing the time spent seeking care or in states of health
that prevent work, it can also reduce production of both market and non-market
goods, and through this, consumption. The impact is not just limited to the current
time period; health services and goods may be paid for out of current income, but
could also be financed from cash savings if available, or if not, via a loan or the sale

of household assets (e.g. dis-savings). Reduced household income, savings and

assets resulting from the consumption of health services and goods may in turn
lead to depleted investment in (physical, financial and human) capital. These
factors influence consumption possibilities in the future.
Firms: Ill-health can reduce the productivity and efficiency of a firm, which may
negatively affect its earnings and profits, its ability to invest profits into new capital
accumulation and thereby reduce the wealth or consumption possibilities of its
owners. Productive capacity is partly determined by factors other than human
capital (such as technology), and potential economic losses from work absence due
to ill-health may be partially or fully compensated for by other workers. However,
this implies higher costs for the firm through the need to keep some 'excess
capacity' in the event of illness to some staff members. Firms may also devote a
proportion of their operating activities to health-related expenditures and benefits
for their employees.
Government: Governments essentially produce public goods and redistribute
income, although the definition of what constitutes a public good is often very
broad. Illness in its employees can reduce the output of public goods or increase the
cost of producing them in the same way as with firms. However, governments are
often more concerned with the impact of ill-health in the population on its financial
expenditures and receipts. These relate to the increased costs of providing or
financing health services, increased social security payments including disability or
unemployment benefits, and reduced tax receipts. From an economic perspective, it
is important to note that such redirection of financial flows represent transfer
payments and therefore do not appear in national income accounts (because no
goods or services were required in return).

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Medicine, 66: 2296-2307.
3. Abraham KG, Mackie C (2005). Beyond The Market: Designing Non-market
Accounts For The United States. Washington, DC, USA: National Academy Press.
4. Acemoglu D and Johnson S (2006). Disease and development: The effect of life
expectancy on economic growth. NBER Working Paper 12269.