Frequent contributor Alex Kronstein continues his series on the social determinants of health, all the things that can make you sick that aren’t strictly speaking medical in nature, things like poverty, bad housing, your job, and more. Today Alex looks at social exclusion.

Homelessness, housing in bad repair and malnutrition can make you sick, both physically and mentally. Yet when we talk about healthcare we rarely talk about addressing root causes and mostly focus on things like wait lists and doctor shortages. Although tremendously important issues, we should not forget about these social determinants of health, says regular contributor Alex Kronstein.

You often don’t get sick in a vacuum. Having a stressful job, a mind numbing job, or maybe one that doesn’t make you feel appreciated, are all things that affect your health. The same is true for being unemployed. For part two of a series on the things that make you sick contributor Alex Kronstein focuses on unemployment and job security, and employment and working conditions.

New contributor Alex Kronstein suggests that an election campaign is the perfect time to bug the candidates about the underlying social causes of our healthcare crisis. In part 1 of the series he argues that when it comes to income distribution Nova Scotia could do much better. A living wage, a $15 minimum wage, making it easier for workplaces to unionize, and a guaranteed income are all measures that could make a big difference here.