Session 2 Flashcards
How can socio-economic status be measured?
Their occupation.
The area where they live.
What is deprivation measured on, and what are the 7 domains?
The index of multiple deprivation:
- Educational skills and training.
- Income.
- Employment.
- Crime.
- Health and disability.
- Living environment.
- Barriers to housing and services.
What is the correlation between health and socioeconomic position?
The higher the socioeconomic position, the greater the life expectancy and greater the disability-free life expectancy.
What are some explanations of health inequalities?
The Black Report.
The Marmot Report.
State the 4 theories of the black report.
Artefact.
Social selection.
Behavioural-cultural.
Materialist.
What is the artefact explanation for health inequalities, and what is wrong with it?
Health inequalities are evident due to the way statistics are collected. It has concerns about the quality of the data and the methods of its measurements.
This is wrong and in-fact, the representation of data is showing a lower correlation than there really is.
What is the social selection explanation for health inequalities, and what is wrong with it?
It states that peoples health is what causes their low socioeconomic status, not the other way around.
People who are healthy will move up the socioeconomic ladder and those who are ill will move down.
This implies that all people with chronic disabilities will have a low socioeconomic status, when this is not always the case.
There is some correlation but it is mostly the reverse.
What is the behavioural-cultural explanation for health inequalities, and what is wrong with it?
It states that peoples poor health is due to the decisions that they make, their knowledge and goals.
It states that people from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to make health damaging behaviours, and people from advantaged backgrounds are more likely to make health promoting choices.
This does not take into account other factors, such as money availability, social factors, and adverse conditions - it is not always possible to make health-promoting choices.
What is the materialist explanation for health inequalities?
It states that inequalities arise in health from differential access to material resources - low income, unemployment, work environments, low control over job, poor housing conditions.
This is an accepted explanation for health inequalities, but further research is required to show how material deprivation causes ill-health.
What is the psychosocial explanation for health inequalities?
People who are of a lower socioeconomic class are more prone to experiencing stress. This can impact on health through:
- Direct = physiological, affecting the immune system.
- Indirect = mental health can be affected, leading to more health-damaging behaviours.
Some stressors may be negative life events, job security, work-related stress and autonomy, and social stress.
Explain the income distribution explanation for health inequalities.
It is not the absolute income that a person in a population has that affects their health, but the range of incomes that people have. The overall health of a population is greater when there is a shorter range over incomes - in egalitarian populations.
What is a redistributive policy?
A policy where income inequalities are reduced to increase the health of a population.
What kinds of healthcare do the more deprived groups use and not use?
They mostly use emergency services such as A&E and GP services.
They underuse the preventative services, such as screening, and specialist services.
Why do the more deprived groups tend to use the healthcare services in their patterns?
There is often a normalisation of ill-health.
Health is more frequently managed as a series of crises.
Less money and time available to use non-emergency services.
