Dear Colleagues
Below information on paper in latest issue of the sociology of health and illness by Jennie Popay and colleagues which may be of interest to some of you
Best wishes
David McDaid
LSE Health and Social Care
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Sociology of Health & Illness: Volume 25, Issue 1, Jan 2003
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Beyond 'beer, fags, egg and chips'? Exploring lay understandings of
social inequalities in health
Jennie Popay, Sharon Bennett, Carol Thomas, Gareth Williams, Anthony
Gatrell, Lisa Bostock
Sociology of Health & Illness; Volume 25, Issue 1, Page 1-23
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1467-9566.t01-1-00322
Abstract
This paper seeks to contribute to the limited body of work that has directly explored lay understandings of the causes of health inequalities. Using both quantitative and qualitative methodology, the views of people living in contrasting socio-economic neighbourhoods are compared. The findings support previous research in suggesting that lay theories about causality in relation to health inequalities, like lay concepts of health and illness in general, are multi-factorial. The findings, however, also illustrate how the ways in which questions about health and illness are asked shape people's responses. In the survey reported on here people had no problem offering explanations for health inequalities and, in response to a question asking specifically about area differences in health experience, people living in disadvantaged areas 'constructed' explanations which included, but went beyond, individualistic factors to encompass structural explanations that gave prominence to aspects of 'place'. In contrast, within the context of in-depth interviews, people living in disadvantaged areas were reluctant to accept the existence of health inequalities highlighting the moral dilemmas such questions pose for people living in poor material circumstances. While resisting the notion of health inequalities, however, in in-depth interviews the same people provided vivid accounts of the way in which inequalities in material circumstances have an adverse impact upon health. The paper highlights ways in which different methodologies provide different and not necessarily complementary understandings of lay perspectives on the causes of inequalities in health.
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