Social determinants of health and community assets: Their importance for context analysis

Abstract

Public health, from alternative perspectives on the approach to positive health, seeks to overcome the deficit in recognizing the resources possessed by people and their communities as proposed in the Salutogenesis assets model. Therefore, this paper aims to establish the relationship between the Social Determinants of Health (SDH) and community assets. A two-stage sequential transformative mixed methods design, quantitative and qualitative, was used. Family files, mapping techniques, interviews, and participant observation were used as instruments. Older adults, women, and leaders have a history that creates opportunities based on education, work, and potential, developed individually or by coexistence between the same families and in the neighborhood. The SDH and community assets converge in the understanding of the territory as a social, historical, and eco-environmental space. There, the macro-policies are reflected, sometimes isolated from people’s perceived, conceived, and lived spaces. In the construction of a healthy life, the main elements are people and their relationships. It is in this context that their talents, skills, and abilities are discovered. The results show a bilateral relationship between community assets and the SDH to understand the health–disease process. While the determinants focus on external conditions, risk, and vulnerability, depending on the disease, the assets do so in a positive health perspective that strengthens the resources of people and their communities. In this sense, they complement each other.