Discuss the view that health inequalities can be explained by lifestyle choices made by different social groups

Authors Avatar

Discuss the view that health inequalities can be explained by lifestyle choices made by different social groups.

During the last century the general consensus in the western world has regarded medical advancement as the main reason for improvements in society’s health. This media fuelled conception has led the public to believe that we are able to ‘control’ the human body and can predict mortality with healthy choices adopted from scientific research which in turn improve your lifespan. However in 1980, the ground-breaking Black report introduced evidence that showed large discrepancies between the levels of health amongst different groups. This highlighted socioeconomic patterns such as class, ethnicity, geography and gender which highlighted the differences amongst social groups in morbidity and mortality. This evident disparity within the lower classes is clear, still the difficulties continue when we need to attribute these; the two main arguments out of four from the report, rest on either cultural differences or structural differences. Nevertheless our perplexed government, who authorised the Black report and subsequent reports, find that the trend of inequality amongst the people in the lowest echelon is widening. Without understanding the problem it seems they will struggle to close the gap. Ultimately alongside the government we try to analyse the differences and examine the problems that the lower classes are dogged by and what ultimately secures their unfair early death and ill health.

The explosive contents of the Black report (DHSS 1980) were extremely expensive to implement and Thatcher attempted to suppress its inflammatory contents (Berridge 03) still, the report was published. It presented the findings using the Standardised Mortality Ratio to rate social class groups, with 100 being the average and anything below that number would mean they have a lower chance of death than average and conversely with a higher number they have a higher chance of death. With 5 social groups (class I being professionals and class V being unskilled workers) the report found that ‘the higher the social class group, the lower it’s SMR and conversely the lower the social class group, the higher it’s SMR’. Another important finding, which is still true today, was that the gap between the two classes was widening but an over-all increase in health all-round. The report categorised four explanations for differences in class: Firstly artefact the way in which the statistics are collected is not perfected, secondly the Darwinism Social selection, thirdly Cultural differences for example the working classes are more likely to engage in unhealthy pursuits and lastly Material differences whereby economical stratification holds back the poorest in society which thereby increases the chance of early death. The report was ground breaking and used around the world with wide-spread agreement that amongst sociologists that ‘Cultural factors and Structural explanations are the main contributors to health’ (Whitehead 92 cited in Taylor).

Join now!

  1. Cultural explanations include the idea the working classes are more likely to take risks, especially males aged between 17-24 (Haralambos p313) and furthermore adopt unhealthy lifestyle choices ‘working class people are more likely to smoke eat less fruit, consume high amounts of sugar and have diets with higher levels of fat’ (HMSO cited in Haralambos) This argument lends its ideas to two opinions primarily the importance of individual’s lifestyles on health on the other hand that there are many behaviours imbedded in the social culture of class and not under control of the individual.  Some government policies show ...

This is a preview of the whole essay