All over the world status hierarchy and social class are a common concept of how well we live our lives, however they affect our lives more than we think. Social class can affect many things such as education, opportunities presented to us, economic factors, and even our health. Recently socioeconomic status effects on health has become a more popular topic of discussion but is nothing new to researchers. “Research on socioeconomic inequalities in health in the UK has a long history. In the early part of the 20th century the British government introduced questions on occupation in the decennial census. This allowed researchers to examine health outcomes by social class.” (Knott, Dr Laurence). Researchers have discovered social class can …show more content…
Social class is determined by many things such as status, culture, employment, background, and wealth, along with other factors. Being in a certain class affects your health and even the type of health care you receive. Males in a higher social class live on average 9 years longer than males in more deprived areas or lower social classes and are in “good health” for 85 percent of their lives compared to 70 percent (Knott, Dr Laurence..). I believe social class affects health because of things such as living conditions, lack of resources for health care and education, and that lower class people prefer and are fine with less healthy lifestyles. People in higher classes are usually very successful and motivated in most aspect of life while people in lower classes may not be. I don’t think there is much we can do to resolve this problem as most of these problems are dependent on each person’s life choices and not much will change if we cannot fix this problem. Why social class has such a big on health will always be a question and I dont think theres an exact answer for it.
There are believed to be many reason why social class affects health. One of these reasons are the bad habits or addictions that are associated with the lower class. One of the biggest habits or addictions most commonly associated with the lower class is smoking. An article from the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved (Levinson, Arnold H. )Is
There has always been a link between social class and health, even with the welfare state and the improvements made to health in all sections of societies over the years, a difference still remains in this area. This difference is applied to all aspects of health, which include life expectancy, general levels of health and infant mortality. Many people argue that as long as the quality of life is
Social class helps to deter the reasons for individual’s health and ill health. Social classes also help with understanding health and ill health, this is done through the basis of individuals lifestyle class, for example the lower class who work in the worst
Different researches do believe that there is a link between social class and health. It is a statistical impression and also it has been argued that there isn’t really a pattern in social class, age and peoples employment that has had an impact on people’s health inequalities.
Understanding social factors in health has become a central issue recently and a large number of studies has been dedicated in this regard. Social factors are phenomena seen in the interaction between individuals and social groups. In this essay, the importance of understanding such factors and their influence on health are addressed by studying socioeconomic status. Studies results are incorporated to explain health inequalities that arise from socioeconomic status and possible explanations including the material and structural, social selection, cultural and historical explanations cited in the literature are briefly discussed.
“Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander people have a greater amount of disadvantage and significantly more health problems than the non-Aboriginal & Torres strait Islander population in Australia”
Social determinants of health encompasses ethnicity, gender and social class. It is seen as the essential
For a variety of reasons, it is easier for the monied classes to access quality health care when needed and, in general, lead healthier lifestyles. People of higher socioeconomic groups have been shown to live longer (Scrambler, 2012). Beginning with higher infant mortality rates, lower socioeconomic groups often face a lifetime of challenges to good health and longevity.
Why are higher income and social status associated with better health? If it were just a matter of the poorest and lowest status groups having poor health, the explanation could be things like poor living conditions. But the effect occurs all across the socio-economic spectrum. Considerable research indicates that the degree of control people have over life circumstances,
classes are perhaps not as clear as they used to be. But it is just as
This essay will discuss ways in which a person’s socioeconomic class and his/her social situation can have an impact on his/her health, using examples. We believe that there is a direct link between socioeconomic/social class and health (Adler et al. 1994). I will be defining the key terms: socioeconomic and health, social class then proceed to discuss about how poverty, income, employability, environment and housing can impact on a person’s social situation and their health.
Being born into a certain social class may affect your health drastically, a child born in the lower end of the social systems is twice as likely to die in the first few months of their life than a child born in the professional class (6). (See appendix1.1) The well being of a child is also at risk when born lower down in the social scale, their vaccinations and dentist visits are limited. (See appendix1.2)
There are many different reasons why health inequalities exist due to many factors one extremely important one is social class. Socio-economic inequalities have been researched in the UK for many years. In the early 20th century the government started an occupational census which gave the researchers the opportunity to examine health outcomes of social class. The five class scheme was introduced in 1911 and a variation has been used since. In 2001 the National Statistics Socio Economic Classification replaced the older version. Social class is a name used to identify people who are similar in their income
The aim of this essay is to examine the influence that socio-economic status has on an individual’s health.
The UK social class system is easily seen through education; upper class people send their children to expensive private schools whereas lower class or people in poverty send their children to public schools (if any school) that are free. The private schools of the UK are known to have “better” education then the public schools simply because they have more financing. They have teachers educated to a higher standard, bigger facilities and most importantly statistics show students are more likely to achieve higher grades the n a public school. Impact of education on health says “Education impacts on health in two ways; firstly, through teaching that enables children to learn specifically about health (often known as skills-based health education) and secondly through the educational process as a whole which provides skills such as critical thinking and making choices that enable children to opt for healthy lifestyles.” (Impact of education on health, 2012). Therefore, the higher social class and better educated a person is, the healthier they will
Socio-economic class or socio-economic status (SES) may refer to mixture of various factors such as poverty, occupation and environment. It is a way of measuring the standard and quality of life of individuals and families in society using social and economic factors that affect health and wellbeing ( Giddens and Sutton, 2013). Cockerham (2007 p75) argues: ‘Social class or socioeconomic status (SES) is the strongest predictor of health, disease causation and longevity in medical sociology.’ Research in the 1990s, (Drever and Whitehead, 1997) found out that people in higher SES are generally healthier, and live longer than those in lower SES.