Sociological Perspectives. Understanding patterns and trends in health and illness among different social groupings

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Elise Cunningham, unit 7, Helen Smith, Sociological Perspectives for health and social care

Understanding patterns and trends in health and illness among different social groupings

In this assignment I am going to explain the patterns and trends in health and illness among different social groupings. I will try identifying according to the factors such as gender, social class, geographical location, ethnicity and age.

Measurement of health-

The statistical trends in the levels of health and illness are generated from three main sources these are; government statistics, charitable organisations and pressure groups and academic researchers and other authors.

Government statistics- the government statistics provides up to date and current data on a wide range of health and care issues. Different publications provide a wide range of statistics on birth rates and death rates, infant mortality rate and suicide rates, also they withhold appointments with the GP, and hospital admissions, and they will be analysed by social class, gender, geographical location and age.

Charitable organisations and pressure groups- charitable groups and also special interest groups also collect and publish statistical and information that informs the discussion on issues of health and illness. They help people with different kinds of issues and provide recent information relating to different areas of concern.

Academic researchers and other authors- these researchers and authors are based mainly in universities, and they contribute to the evidence and debate on a wide range of health and social care issues.

The government statistics include mortality rates which are the death rates in the population and they also up hold the mobility rates which are the number of people who have particular diseases during a specific period of time. The information will then be compared over periods of time, where they will then see if the rates have either increased or de-creased.

The information about the two rates will be analysed by sex, age, geographical location or social class. Morbidity rates can be measured in terms of the prevalence of disease, which is the total number of cases of a specific disease in a population during a specific period of time.

We then have the disease incidence, which is the number of new cases where a specific disease has occurred in a population during a specific period of time.

Mostly infant mortality rates are used as an indicator of the health and well-being of the population as a whole. When these rates are either higher or rising in a particular location, or within a social group, is then seen as a sign that the levels of health and wellbeing are declining within the different groups, and that the causes may be because of the persons social and economic environment.

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Mortality rates are collected from the official and required registration of deaths, and the causes of death from a legally required death certificate.

The information on the morbidity rates can be drawn from a wide range of sources this can be the doctor’s surgeries, hospital admissions and appointments and the registration of notifiable diseases. There have also been more general studies that have measured the levels of ill-health, although these studies may not have been related to any specific condition, because of this they will use self- reported measures of health, this is where they will ask people to ...

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