Health and Social Care OCR Level 2
Unit 3 – Individual needs in Health and Social Care
Olivia Lagar
By: Imama Shahid - Tutor Group 716

P2: Explain factors which affect the everyday needs of individuals

Physical Factors:

Age
A person’s age will affect their health as they will need different amounts of nutrients, attention and care. They will also need different types of food to help them with their development and they have different physical needs as well as different: emotional, intellectual and social needs. However, some people may be developing faster and others may be developing slower. Furthermore, age can affect a person’s health and needs negatively when you get old you and your body start to change e.g. you aren’t as energetic as you use to be, if you use to be a fit and healthy person and just one day because you got old and that all changes. This can affect you emotionally because you may start to think that you can’t do anything at all, with the help of a care worker you can still do the exercise but requires help.

Genetic Inheritance
When we are conceived, we inherit genes from both our mother and father. These genes are what make us unique; they decide what eye, hair colour etc. we have. Sometimes genes are faulty or there are not enough of them, and that is why some people may inherit medical diseases or medical conditions. This means that these are passed from generation to another (and there is a possibility that the children might inherit the illness/disease). Also, genetic inheritance can affect you negatively because when we are born we have different types of genes that we inherit from out parent e.g. if when the baby is being conceived and the baby ends up with an extra chromosome the baby will be born with down syndrome which isn’t the parents fault and the baby won’t be the same as any other baby with 46 chromosomes (23 from each parent) this can affect your physical development because if you are in a wheel chair you aren’t getting any exercise e.g. walk or running.

Disability and Health
This can affect you negatively, if you have a disability you may think that you are different in a bad way because there is people that don’t have disabilities. This can affect them emotionally because they may think that people are being nice to them because they have a disability and that they have to be nice. This can affect a disabled person physically because they won’t be able to get the exercise because they may be in a wheelchair or just not fit and able to do certain activities.

Environmental Factors:

Environment:
No matter what age we are, we all need clean: food, air, shelter, water and sanitation in order to survive. We also need proper waster facilities because air pollution can irritate people’s nose, ears, and throat. Furthermore, living in an environment that isn’t clean or provides you with the clean air, water or that doesn’t have the proper waste facilities. Living in an environment that you don’t feel safe and secure in can affect your emotional and social needs e.g. if you are living in a house that isn’t clean or that is maybe always cold then you won’t want to invite your friends round and socialise with them.

Social-economic factors:

Employment

Employment is to do with learning new skills in your experiences of different kinds of jobs. Employment can affect you negatively because if you don’t have a safe and secure job then you won’t be able to run a house and provide all kinds of things for your family e.g. healthy food, proper clothing & school uniform. If you are in a job that you don’t like and don’t enjoy then you won’t want to go to work which means you won’t be able to earn a wage or salary. As well as, employment provides a source of income which impacts upon a person’s ability to purchase goods. Furthermore, employment can give an individual a sense of: value, self-worth, to increase their self-esteem and wellbeing. Negatively, employment can make a person feel stressed,