---------------------- Forwarded by Dennis Raphael/Atkinson on 02/21/2003 02:29
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"Mcdaid,D" <[log in to unmask]>@JISCMAIL.AC.UK> on 02/21/2003 01:08:01 PM

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 Subject:  Beyond 'beer, fags (cigarrettes), egg and chips'?
           Exploring lay understandings of social
           inequalities in health







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
------------------------------------------------------------------------

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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