Lay Health Beliefs

Question 1

Lay beliefs affect illness behaviour

Answer 1

Illness behaviour is learned, starting in childhood

Health belief model

Pressure from others to consult is key trigger to consulting GP

Question 2

‘Medical dominance’

Answer 2

Profession’s authority to determine what is to be counted as sickness

Medical dominance over patients

Medical dominance over other professions (nursing, professions allied to medicine) in terms of division of health-related labour

Question 3

The decline of medical dominance

Answer 3

Social relations with medicine have changed a great deal (since the 1970s), due to factors including:

the rise of managerialism in the health service;

developments in nursing practice;

the increasing importance of patient voices in health;

changing social conceptualisations of expertise (influenced by new media technologies).

Question 4

‘lay health beliefs’ over time

Answer 4

Now (1990s onwards)
greater weight given to lived experience of illness and disability (patient and public involvement)

different forms of expertise, not ignorance vs expertise

shift from talking about “lay beliefs” to talking about “lay knowledge” and “lay epidemiology”

emergence of “experts-by-experience”

Up to the 1970s - medical dominance

Question 5

Exploring lay health beliefs and risk perceptions

Answer 5

‘Differences between lay and expert perceptions of risk in relation to health can be better understood when lay knowledge is viewed in the context of people’s lives and experiences.’

Question 6

Tension around need for both education and expertise

Answer 6

In an era when health funding is restricted, patient expertise and patient self-management become valuable features of the health service – ‘The Expert Patient’

Question 7

Tension around need for both education and expertise

Answer 7

Patients need to be able to distinguish between what can be managed through self-care; what needs expert attention
◦ This idea came to the fore in the latter part of the 20th century, they co-exist with a shift towards expertise by experience

Question 8

Summary of health beliefs lecture

Answer 8

The influence of beliefs on health behaviour Health belief model = PSYCHOLOGY THEME

Expertise and belief as categories that have meaning within a particular historical and cultural context
◦ E.g.‘expertsbyexperience’isarelativelynewterm

‘Lay health beliefs’ or ‘lay health knowledge’?

People’s lived experience, and their interactions, enable them to recognise that unhealthy practices do not always lead straightforwardly to poor health outcomes

Infodemic – masses of health information online – how do people recognise what to trust?

Role of education and other resources (e.g. socioeconomic resources) in health knowledge