HaDSoc 3.1- inequalities and inequities in health Flashcards
What are some way in which we can measure health?
- looking at mortality and life expectancy
- using census’ to find population level data on people’s health
- patient records?
What classification do we use to measure socioeconomic position?
NS-SEC.
National statistics socio-economic classification.
How many levels of socioeconomic status are there? Give examples.
7 levels,
1 is the highest, lawyers, doctors, professionals
7 is the lowest- routine workers, cleaners, unemployed
What are the general patterns about socioeconomic status and health?
The lower the status, the worse the health.
How can you measure deprivation?
By looking at census data and domains such as:
- income
- employment
- health and disability
- education
- barriers to housing and services
- living environment
- crime
What summaries can be made about the social patterning of health?
There are health inequalities evident both between and within regions.
What are the 4 domains of the black report?
1) artefact
2) social selection
3) behavioural-cultural
4) materialist
What is the artefact explanation (Black report)?
The differences between social classes are due to the way we measure the statistics.
This is unlikely and it has been found that if anything, the measurement is an underestimate of social differences instead of an overestimate.
What is the social selection explanation? (Back report)
Social class does not determine health, it’s the otehr way round.
People in poorer health are more likely to fall down the social scale becuase they cant work/are limited.
People in good health are more likely to move up to social scale.
However the fact that the trends are also evident in children, where work is not an issue, discredit this explanation.
What is the behavioral-cultural explanation (black report)?
Differences in health are due to socioeconomic differences leading to different damaging behaviours, poorer knowlege etc.
This is too simplistic and is victim blaming.
In some situations, constraints make it difficult to change behavior, eg too expensive to start eating better/having to work too many hours to cook proper meals.
What is the materialist explanation? (Black report)
inequalities arise from availability of different resources and hazard exposure.
This is not the fault of the person, but circumstantial.
This is the best explaination of the 4.
What is the phsycosocial explaination?
It’s not just economic and environmental factors, but also the effects of stressors and buffers which vary across socioeconomic groups. ]
For example in lower groups there’s likely to be more stress, unemployment, housing, less social support. These will have a negative effect on health.
What’s the relevance of income distribution?
in Countries which have a larger ranges of income, those on the lower end of the scale are likely to have iller health.
This is because they feel inferior, have lower self esteem and are not likely to have access to the same resources.
Why is it difficult to measure the inequities in access to health care?
Hard to measure who DOESNT use a service, have to measure based on who does.
What’s the difference between inequality and inequity?
Inequality- when things are not equal.
Inequity- when things are not equal and avoidable (Eg have 2 people with the same needs but getting different treatments)
