When looking at chronic health conditions, it’s important to step back and consider how different environments, backgrounds, historical contexts, and social interactions may shape someone’s journey with their health condition, how it impacts their treatment and support, and how they are able to navigate health management.
Social Determinants of Chronic Health Conditions
As WHO describes, “the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age, and the set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life” (WHO, 2025) can impact the various aspects of chronic health conditions.
For example, Cockerham et al. (2016) state that an individual who grows up in a household that smokes may also adopt the habit once grown up, or just the simple exposure can predispose them to a respiratory health condition. Socioeconomic and educational factors can also impact whether someone is able to minimize or abstain from the habit if there is substance use dependency (Cockerham et al., 2016).
Some other factors that may impact a person with chronic health conditions:
- Socioeconomic status
- Ex. Being able to afford specialized health care or having health insurance that covers treatment.
- Discrimination
- Ex. Past experiences of discrimination either based on health conditions or personal characteristics, such as race, may discourage future help seeking.
- Access to health care
- Ex. Being able to access health care either through monetary means, having time, or being physically close to access support may increase the quality and timeliness of support before the health condition worsens.
Indigenous Health
The impact of colonialism and its lasting detrimental impact on the health, sociocultural, educational, and economical foundation of Indigenous communities have resulted in a disproportionate number of Indigenous peoples having chronic health conditions (First Nations Information Governance Centre, 2018; Skelly et al., 2018). In addition to this, Indigenous Peoples may encounter barriers when seeking support such as discrimination, stereotyping, and a general lack of understanding of Indigenous ways and culture.
Some of the ways that Indigenous People can be supported is to provide access to traditional nutritional food needs, addressing food insecurity and access to traditional medicines. Additionally, preserving traditional knowledge and wisdom to promote agency in their community is also recommended (Sinka et al., 2025). Any programs to address health knowledge and ambiguity must involve community, family members, and build opportunities for leadership, all initiatives must be rooted in cultural safety, partnership, and power sharing (Brooks-Cleator et al., 2018).
Health Care Experiences of Equity Deserving Groups
Medical biases and inappropriate care are barriers that can greatly impact a person’s experience and trust within the health care system. Sometimes these types of care can lead to serious harm. Some of these experiences are often too common, whether it’s because it is implicit bias rooted in racism, lack of awareness, and/or whether it was taught as a way to approach patient care. The table below provides some examples of what certain groups of people may experience. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list.
| Population Affected | Example |
| Black women (Misogynoir) |
|
| Indigenous people (Cooke & Shields, 2024) |
|
| People with larger bodies (College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario’s Publication for Ontario Doctors, 2021) |
|
| Women/Assigned female at birth (Koven, 2025) |
|
| 2SLGBTQIA+ people (Comeau et al., 2023) |
|
| South Asian people |
|
Table 3: Harmful experiences faced by equity deserving groups
A lot of these experiences described here can overlap among different people and are not exclusive
to one demographic. Understanding these biases and racial discrimination are important, even if campuses don’t have direct control over how health care providers may choose to care for their patients. This awareness, as well as the ability to validate a student’s experience if they experience any of these situations, could reduce feelings of loneliness for the student, potentially empowering them to take action, so that they can get the help that they deserve.
The Importance of Disability Justice
Disability justice is a term coined by Sins Invalid (a group consisting of disabled queer women of colour) in 2005. It is a comprehensive framework intended to secure rights of disabled people by acknowledging that intersectionality plays a role in disability. Experiences of people of colour, incarcerated people, Indigenous peoples, homeless people, and many more compound on disability/ health conditions they may experience. You can read more about disability justice here.
Student Voice: Have a Little Empathy: Students with Chronic Disease Feel Ignored and Misunderstood
This article from a student paper at Toronto Metropolitan University, outlines experiences of students with chronic health conditions and navigating the health care system for diagnosis and accommodations. The quotation below describes a student’s experience:
“I kept being told that there was nothing wrong with me for the next four years,” says MacKay. She recalls doctors reading through her medical history, noticing her diagnosed mental health disorders and immediately dismissing her pain. “They would be like ‘It’s in your head.’”
