Lay Beliefs Flashcards
What are lay beliefs?
How people with no specialised knowledge understand and make sense of health and illness.
Socially embedded and complex (drawn from many different sources).
What are the 3 different perceptions of health?
- Negative def - health = absence of illness
- Functional def - health = ability to do certain things
- Positive def - health = state of wellbeing and fitness
What are the 3 types of behaviour relating to health/disease?
- Health behaviour - activity undertaken for purpose of maintaining health and preventing illness.
- Illness behaviour - activity of ill person to define illness and seek solution.
- Sick role behaviour - formal response to symptoms, inc. seeking formal help and action, of person as a patient.
What is the lay referral system?
Chain of advice-seeking contacts which the sick make with other lay people prior to - or instead of - seeking help from health care professionals.
Which 4 main factors can influence when a person seeks medical help?
- Symptom experience
- Symptom evaluation
- Knowledge of disease and treatments
- Experience of, and attitudes towards, health professionals.
Which 6 explanations can explain inequalities in terms of health?
Black Report:
- Artefact
- Social selection
- Behavioural-culture
- Materialist
- Pyschosocial
- Income distribution
What is the artefact explanation? Is it reliable?
- Heath inequalities are evident due to the way statistics are collected.
- Unlikely, data problems may even lead to underestimation of inequalities.
Describe the social selection explanation. Is it plausible?
- Direction of causation is from health to social position (e.g. Sick individuals move down social hierarchy).
- Plausible but studies suggests this makes only minor contribution.
Describe the behavioural-cultural explanation. Is it plausible?
- Ill health is due to people’s choices/decisions, knowledge and goals (e.g. Disadvantaged background people engage more in health-damaging behaviour).
- Limitations:
- behaviours are outcomes of social processes, not simply individual choice.
- “choices” may be difficult to exercise in adverse conditions.
- “choices” may be rational for those whose lives are constrained by their lack of resources.
Describe the materialist explanation. Is it plausible?
- Inequalities in health arise from differential access to material resources (e.g. Low income, poor housing conditions).
- lack of choice in exposure to hazards and adverse conditions.
- accumulation of factors across life-course.
- More plausible but further research needed.
Describe the psychosocial explanation. Is it plausible?
- Psychosocial pathways act in addition to direct effects of absolute material living standards.
- Some stressors are distributed on a social gradient (e.g. Negative life events, social supports job security…).
- Stress impacts on health via different pathways:
- direct (physiological, immune system)
- indirect (health related behaviours, mental health)
Describe the income distribution explanation. Is it plausible?
- Relative (not average) income affects health.
- Countries with greater income inequalities have greater health inequalities - it is not the richest, but the most egalitarian societies that have the best health.
- Associated with psychosocial explanation.
- Redistributive policies: reducing income inequality in a society can improve social well-being, and in turn many other health and social factors.
How are there inequalities in access the healthcare?
- More deprived groups have
- higher rates of use of GP services and emergency services
- under-use of preventive services and specialist services
- Tendency to manage health as a series of crises - normalisation of ill health.
