Online Assignment IV

Toki Tokijkla

California State University San Bernardino

HSCI 6330: Adv. Topics HSCI and Human Ecology

Dr. Henley

May 6, 2023
 Discrimination can lead
The Prison Industrial Complex
directly to incarceration,
independent of other
factors

Discrimination Incarceration Families

experience poorer
community
engagement due to
family member
incarceration

Prisons poorly prepare

Limited access to care incarcerated individuals for
and mental health release, leading to high
resources may recidivism rates
increase the likelihood
of incarceration due to Community
untreated mental
illness Engagement

Students receiving poorer

Access and community engagement may
have issues pursuing an
Quality of Care education (stress, lack of
support/social network, etc)

Most access to healthcare
is given through
employers; unstable
employment means
decreased access to
healthcare
Education
Tax-funded schools
and expensive higher
education means
poorer education for
those of lower income
Receiving poorer education may
lead to difficulties finding stable
and well-paying jobs

Economic Stability

Creating causal loop diagrams is an excellent way to explore, describe, and explain the
barriers underserved populations face. This is because no single variable exists in a vacuum,
and all of the social determinants of health feed into each other in different and complex ways. If
this network of variables and feedback were to continue, it is highly likely that you would end up
with a complicated web like the one featured in the article provided. And, similar to the article,
you could then use the loop network to identify and discuss some of the major contributors to
the loop as a way to begin addressing inequities. Using causal loop diagrams is also significant
because it allows us to communicate those relationships to a broader audience. For example,
statistics related to social determinants of health (such as graduation rates and incarceration
rates) are often taken out of context and used to justify dangerous ideology, such as social
darwinism or racial hierarchies; by putting those statistics back into context, we can help
mitigate those types of interpretations. It also allows us to put it in a way which is easy to
understand for most people, since many people will not immediately connect the different social
determinants of health. For me personally as a student, doing this holds its own value as it
allows me to put those connections together and hold them somewhere stable, letting me work
and re-work the chart as needed until I felt happy with the results. It also allowed me to focus on
one specific direction for the interactions between SDOHs, since considering them mentally can
often feel scrambled and directionless.
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