Word count: 429.
References
Table 7.15, page 108, Social Trends 36. Supplementary Material, Social Sciences, Level 1, An introduction to the Social Sciences: Understanding Social Change (DD121)
Part (b)
How useful is the ‘social approach’ in explaining differences in health amongst different social groups?
The Social explanation with regards to health and illness was formed following the publication of two government reports, these were, The Black Report (1980) and The health divide (1992). The reports examined statistics such as mortality and life expectantly which are areas that are used to monitor the condition of health within the UK (Smith and Goldbalt, page 51). The social approach emphasises the effects of the structural features of society on health and illness as oppose to the body and individual health choices (Smith and Goldbalt, pages 54 and 55). This explanation, when defining health and illness puts the main emphasis on illness and believes that structural factors such as class and ethnicity, network to shape individuals ill health and cause illness. For example, poor housing conditions have been associated with poor health since the earliest studies in the nineteenth century and whilst housing conditions have generally seen an improvement since this time there is still evidence to suggest that they are a powerful factor (Smith and Goldbalt, page 55). The social explanation states that health and illnesses are not just the result of either biological factors or social factors but by an interaction of the two which then in turn create particular health consequences. The social approach is reliant on evidence from statistical surveys such as Oppenheim and Harker, 1996 and Social Trends, 2002, and this evidence suggests that the socio-economic classification of individuals in the UK has effects on their health and illness rate and their risk of illness rate. To give a clearer picture of this evidence, when looking at perinatal and infant mortality rates you can clearly see that the over the two time periods investigated which were 1978-79 and 1992 there has been a reduction in all deaths of babies since 1978-79, however, what this evidence also illustrates is that although overall death rates have decreased the class trend remains the same for both time periods and shows that children born in social class V are at more risk of dying than those born to parents in social class I (Oppenheim and Harker, 1996). Mortality in babies in their first year can be associated with low birth weight, which is a factor that can then be linked to mothers who are less well off and therefore further down the socio-economic class scale and it can also be linked to cigarette smoking, of which there is other supporting evidence that illustrates that there is a higher likelihood of an individual being a cigarette smoker the lower down the social class scale you go (Table 7.15, page 108, Social Trends 36). Through findings such as these the social approach to health and illness strongly highlighted a necessity to restructure both economic and physical recourses of society (Smith and Goldbalt, page 55).
The social approach is one of four formed to assist us when trying to explain and understand health, the others are the medical approach, the complementary approach and the New Public Health approach. Along with the others the social approach has both strengths and weaknesses. The emphasis of this approach is just on the social and concentrates on illness as oppose to a broader scale approach like that of the New Public Health which looks at the relationship between the natural and the social. In the case of the social approach this could be described as a biased view. However, in contrast other models such as the complementary approach are very much based solely upon health, and the medical approach is based again upon that of illness and sees health as a by product in the absence of disease. Therefore, in order to aid our understanding of the subject as a whole, gaining knowledge from a purely social view which is how this model is structured could be an advantage. In addition to the illness focus of the model, the social approach believes that the cause of illness is largely due to social factors and fails to acknowledge that there could be any aspect of individual agency involved within the subject. This is in contrast to the New Public Health approach which actively promotes the agency people have with regards to their lifestyles and the choices that they make, for example a person’s diet, is to some degree agency, although this agency may be restricted in some circumstances for instance limited finances, it is still an area that is by no means completely structural. The New Public Health approach combines its emphasis of agency along with social and biological structures. This area of the social approach could be viewed as a disadvantage and an advert for individuals not to take responsibility for areas of their lives whereby they are able to apply agency and gain benefits from doing so and should therefore be highlighted as such. The social approach also failed to confront the importance of medicine in delivering health care services (Smith and Goldbalt, page 55) even though there is evidence in some of the findings used by this approach of its importance. For example, Oppenheim and Harker found that perinatal and infant mortality rates have declined throughout each socio-economic class grouping from 1978/79 when compared with 1992 (Oppenheim and Harker, 1996). This is likely to be due to advances in medicine but these findings and improvements in health care have remained unchallenged by this approach and instead the attention has gone into emphasising what changes still need to be made and why. This area could be viewed both as an advantage or disadvantage to the model. The lack of challenge shows and again emphasises what large amounts of work and changes still need to be made but this may also come across as being biased because the improvements that have been made to date have received no recognition from this model.
In conclusion, when comparing all of these approaches and the evidence and findings that each one provides, you can begin to see more clearly that it would be almost impossible to say that any one is wholly correct. Each approach provides us with a variety of evidence and findings all of which are based upon very different concepts and all gain different views of how to deal with health and illness and likewise who or what is responsible for our health based upon these concepts. This variance will more than likely be evident in future findings by each of the different approaches to this subject. However, this can only be an advantage because in order to view a subject in its entirety it is first essential to be aware of all of the views, evidence, strengths and weaknesses of each explanation, in order to then have a basis on which to form our own assumptions. Therefore what can also be concluded is that the social approach proves very useful both in its explanations of health amongst different social groups and other areas and one fact that will remain clear is that health is and should quite rightly be a major concern to both individuals and societies as a whole (Smith and Goldbalt, page73).
Word Count (excluding references): 1130.
References
Smith, B. and Goldbalt, D. (2004) ‘Whose Health Is It Anyway?’ in Hinchcliffe, S. and Woodward, K. (eds) The Natural and the Social: Uncertainty, Risk, Change, London, Routledge/The Open University.
Table 7.15, page 108, Social Trends 36. Supplementary Material, Social Sciences, Level 1, An introduction to the Social Sciences: Understanding Social Change (DD121)
Self Evaluation
The skills that I feel I have best got to grips with throughout TMA 03 are identifying and extracting and I feel that have improved on processing and in particular on re-presenting in comparison to the other TMA’s. The material I feel I have got to grips with best is Book 2 and found the activities enjoyable and very helpful.
I think I that I can still improve on the four areas: identifying, extracting, processing and re-presenting in order get the best out of my essays; I feel that my reading skills also slow me down still at time, for example having to go back and re read information.
