Social determinants of health

Social determinants of health are the economic and social conditions under which people live which determine their health. Virtually all major diseases are primarily determined by a network of interacting exposures that increase or decrease the risk for the disease. This is particularly the case for cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes with these conditions the result of social, economic, and political forces.

As stated in Social Determinants of Health: The Solid Facts (WHO, 2003):

"Health policy was once thought to be about little more than the provision and funding of medical care: the social determinants of health were discussed only among academics. This is now changing. While medical care can prolong survival and improve prognosis after some serious diseases, more important for the health of the population as a whole are the social and economic conditions that make people ill and in need of medical care in the first place. Nevertheless, universal access to medical care is clearly one of the social determinants of health."

Raphael (2008) reinforces this concept: "Social determinants of health are the economic and social conditions that shape the health of individuals, communities, and jurisdictions as a whole. Social determinants of health are the primary determinants of whether individuals stay healthy or become ill (a narrow definition of health). Social determinants of health also determine the extent to which a person possesses the physical, social, and personal resources to identify and achieve personal aspirations, satisfy needs, and cope with the environment (a broader definition of health). Social determinants of health are about the quantity and quality of a variety of resources that a society makes available to its members."

Buy and Build mode

From the neighborhood view, the player selects to play one lot, as in The Sims. There are residential and community lots. Sims live in residential lots, and can travel to community lots to purchase groceries, clothing and magazines as well as interact with Townies.

The player can choose between playing a pre-made inhabited lot, moving a household into a built-up lot, or constructing a building on an empty lot. One novelty from The Sims 1 is foundations.

The player switches among the "live" mode (default) to control Sims, the "buy" mode to add, move or delete furniture, or the "build" mode to rebuild the house. Buy and build mode for community lots is locked when player Sims visit the lot but are available from the neighborhood view. It is also possible to import neighborhood terrains from Sim City 4.

The game contains some time-bound social challenges that provide a reward if successful. Sims can throw parties to gain aspiration points or invite the headmaster over for dinner in order to enroll their children in private school. Some expansion packs have new mini-games, like running a Greek house in University or dating in Nightlife. In Nightlife, each date is a challenge to keep both Sims as happy as possible while accumulating aspiration points.

The Sims 2

The Sims 2 is a 2004 strategic life simulation computer game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It is the sequel to the best-selling computer game, The Sims, which debuted on February 4, 2000.^[3] It was first released on September 14, 2004 for Microsoft Windows. A port to Macintosh was released on June 13, 2005. Eight expansion packs and nine micro-expansion packs were subsequently released. In addition several console versions have been released. Though not commonly known, The Sims 2 is offered on mobile platforms. Mobile manufacturers such as Nokia offer The Sims 2 from the Ovi Store. It costs $4.99 USD.^[4] A sequel, The Sims 3, was released in June 2009.^[5][6]

The Sims 2 has the same concept as its predecessor. Players control their Sims in various activities and forming relationships in a manner similar to real life. The Sims 2, like its predecessor, The Sims, does not have a defined final goal; gameplay is open-ended. Sims have life goals, wants and fears, the fulfillment of which can produce both positive or negative outcomes. All Sims age, and can live over 100 Sim days depending on the degree of which their aspirations are fulfilled. The Sims 2 builds on its predecessor by allowing Sims to age through six stages of life and incorporating a 3D graphics engine. Although gameplay is not linear, story-lines exist in the game's pre-built neighbourhoods. Pleasantview is based 25 years after the town in the original The Sims. Strangetown's storyline is based on the supernatural, and is loosely connected with Pleasantview. Veronaville's characters are based onShakespearian characters.

The Sims 2 was an instant success, selling a then-record one million copies in its first ten days.^[7] As of July 26, 2007, The Sims 2 has sold more than 13 million units worldwide and was the best-selling PC game of 2004.^[8] During April 2008, The Sims 2 website announced that 100 million copies of The Sims series had been sold.^[9] In addition to its commercial success, The Sims 2 was well received by critics gaining a 90% score from aggregators Metacritic and GameRankings.^[10][11]

Apidae

The Apidae are a large family of bees, comprising the common honey bees, stingless bees (which are also cultured for honey), carpenter bees, orchid bees, cuckoo bees, bumblebees, and various other less well-known groups. The family Apidae presently includes all the genera that were previously classified in the families Anthophoridae and Ctenoplectridae, and most of these are solitary species, though a few are alsocleptoparasites. The four groups that were subfamilies in the old family Apidae are presently ranked as tribes within the subfamily Apinae. This trend has been taken to its extreme in a few recent classifications that place all the existing bee families together under the name "Apidae" (or, alternatively, the non-Linnaean clade "Anthophila"), but this is not a widely-accepted practice.

The subfamily Apinae contains a diversity of lineages, the majority of which are solitary, and whose nests are simple burrows in the soil. However, honey bees, stingless bees, and bumblebees are colonial (eusocial), though they are sometimes believed to have each developed this independently, and show notable differences in such things as communication between workers and methods of nest construction. Xylocopines (the subfamily which includes carpenter bees) are mostly solitary, though they tend to be gregarious, and some lineages such as the Allodapini contain eusocial species; most members of this subfamily make nests in plant stems or wood. The nomadines are all cleptoparasites in the nests of other bees.

Karl Marx and Max Weber on Class Conflict

Karl Marx and Max Weber are both critical to the development of the study of class conflict. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx describes his ideas about class conflict. Marx gives his own interpretation of what can be defined as a class. He states that a class is formed when its members achieve class consciousness and solidarity ^[6] This largely happens when the members of a class become aware of their exploitationand the conflict with another class. A class will then realize their shared interests and a common identity. According to Marx, a class will then take action against those that are exploiting the lower classes. Marx largely focuses on the capital industrialist society as the source ofstratification, which ultimately results in class conflict ^[6]. He states that capitalism creates a division between classes which can largely be seen in manufacturing factories. The working class, or the proletariat, is separated from the bourgeoisie because production becomes a social enterprise. Contributing to their separation is the technology that is in factories. Technology deskills and alienates workers as they are no longer viewed as having a specialized skill ^[6]. Another effect of technology is a homogenous workforce that can be easily replaceable. Marx believed that this class conflict would result in the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and that the private property would be communally owned ^[6]. The mode of production would remain, but communal ownership would eliminate class conflict ^[6].

Max Weber agrees with the fundamental ideas of Marx about the economy causing class conflict, but claims that class conflict can also stem from prestige and power ^[6]. Weber argues that classes come from the different property locations. Different locations can largely affect one’s class by their education and the people they associate with ^[6]. He also states that prestige results in different status groupings. This prestige is based upon the social status of one’s parents. Prestige is an attributed value and many times cannot be changed. Weber states that power differences led to the formation of political parties ^[6]. Weber disagrees with Marx about the formation of classes. While Marx believes that groups are similar due to their economic status, Weber argues that classes are largely formed by social status ^[6]. Weber does not believe that communities are formed by economic standing, but by similar social prestige ^[6]. Weber does recognize that there is a relationship between social status, social prestige and classes ^[6].

Class conflict

Class conflict refers to the underlying tensions or antagonisms which exist in society due to conflicting interests that arise from different social positions. Class conflict is thought to play a pivotal role in historyof class societies (such as capitalism and feudalism) by Marxists^[1] who refer to its overt manifestations asclass war, a struggle whose resolution in favor of the working class is viewed by them as inevitable undercapitalism.

Class conflict can take many different shapes. Direct violence, such as wars fought for resources and cheap labor; indirect violence, such as deaths from poverty, starvation or unsafe working conditions; coercion, such as the threat of losing a job or pulling an important investment; or ideology, either intentionally (as with books and articles promoting anti-capitalism) or unintentionally (as with the promotion of consumerism through advertising).

It can be open, as with a lockout aimed at destroying a labor union, or hidden, as with an informal slowdown in production protesting low wages or unfair labor practices.

Middle class

In about the 1770s, when the term "social class" first entered the English lexicon, the concept of a "middle class" within that structure was also becoming important. The Industrial Revolution was allowing a much greater portion of the population to have time for the kind of education and cultural pursuits once restricted to the European feudal division of aristocracy, bourgeoisie, and peasantry which in that period would have included what later became the industrial proletarians of the towns and cities.

Today, concepts of social class assume three general categories: an upper class of proprietors and senior managers; a middle class of people who may not exert power over others, but may earn a significant proportion of their income through commerce, land ownership, or professional employment; and a lower class, who rely on wages for their livelihood.

It is important, however, to highlight the distinction of such a class model from that of the British concept of class in which the terms upper, middle and working-class have different definitions. The chief difference relates to the association of inherited wealth and landed property as a defining characteristic of the upper class. This distinguishes its members from those of the middle class whose membership is more fluid and more reliant upon employment status and its income. This is a broad generalization as there are classes within the middle class, such as the upper middle class whose interest in culture, and whose manners and mores distinguish them from other ranks in the middle strata, but is nonetheless a useful marker by which to distinguish the British concept of class from that of the new world.

In the United States, the term "middle class" is applied very broadly and includes people who would elsewhere be considered working class. As the vast majority of Americans identify themselves as being middle class, there are multiple theories as to what constitutes the American middle class. The term has been used to describe people from all walks of life, from janitors to attorneys.^[10][11] The definition of middle class is also relevant to the perspective of the individual. Due to the high standard of living in wealthy countries such as the U.S., the term middle classis also relevant to the standard of living of the majority of people in the world.

From this perspective, the term middle class becomes more inclusive. As a result, the US middle class is often sub-divided into two or three groups. While one set of theories claim that the middle class is composed of those in the middle of the social strata, other theories maintain that professionals and managers who have a college degree make up most of the middle class.^[12] In 2005 roughly 35% of Americans worked in the professional/professional support or managerial field and 27% had a college degree.^[13] Sociologists such as Dennis Gilbert or Joseph J. Hickey argue that the middle class is divided into two sub-groups. The upper middle class consists of white collar professionals with advanced educations and constitutes roughly 15% of the population. In 2005 the top 15% of income earners (age 25+) had incomes exceeding $62,500.^[14] The lower middle class (or middle-middle class for those who divide the middle class into three segments) consists of other mostly white collar employees with less autonomy in their work, lower educational attainment, lower personal income and less prestige than those of the upper middle class.

Sociologists such as Gilbert, Hickey, James Henslin, and William Thompson have brought forth class models in which the middle class is divided into two sections which combine to represent 47% to 49% of the population.^[5][15][16] Economist Michael Zweig defines class as power relationships among the members of a society, rather than as a lifestyle or by income.^[17] Zweig says that the middle class is only about 34% of the U.S. population, typically employed as managers, supervisors, small business owners and other professional people.