Sociology Inequalities in Health and Illness

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.

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

There are many different factors that can increase your chance of becoming ill and dying. The different factors are social class, gender, age and ethnicity. The different social groups I will look at are social class and gender. I am going to look into how these affect health; I will also explain the pattern and trends. I am using gender because it fits in with the sociological perspective feminism and social class fits in with Marxism.

Lower class people who are unemployed and depend on the government to support themselves live a poorer quality of life. This has a huge effect on levels of health and well being. For example, overcrowding in a home can affect health of an individual. The overcapacity of people living under the same roof creates respiratory infections from bacteria and dirt. This mainly involves the lower respiratory tract, which

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

In addition, many families do not make sufficient income to provide adequate food, housing or health care, and so then health conditions are drastically different than those of the upper class. According to Mantsios, Lower-class standing is correlated with higher rates of infant mortality, eye and ear disease, arthritis, physical disability, diabetes, nutritional deficiency, respiratory

classes are perhaps not as clear as they used to be. But it is just as

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)

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.

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

Class is important as it can determine various aspects that will have a significant impact and influence on how people’s lives are shaped. Feminists have argued for other things to be included such as social divisions to show how they intersect with class. Economic inequalities can have an impact on class as they can determine a person’s status, wealth, income and lifestyle. Class is important as social inequalities exists amongst the rich and poor. Important social factors include poverty, health and education. A person’s identity is just as important as their class. People may face discrimination due to their identity, whether that may be due to their gender, age, ethnicity or disability. Social mobility is where people are in a different social class now from which they were brought up in. However sociologists argue that class is less important in contemporary society today than it once used to be.

There are two types of lifestyle diseases mental and physical, adults who are social- economically damaged with low level of education. (Pollan, 2011) As the study results the more people are social-economically disadvantaged the more they are at health risk.

In this approach, social class is relegated to the status of dependent variable while health itself acquires the greater degree of casual significance. The occupational class structure is seen as a filter or sorter of human beings and one of the major basis of selection is health, that is the physical strength or agility.

The frequency distribution below illustrates the relationship between different income level and health, income-health gradient. It represents five different income levels and their reported health ratings. People who have the lowest income are the members of the first group while people who have the highest income are the members of the last group. Moreover, health rating numbers range from one to five, best to worst. According to the distribution table, people with higher income have the highest percentage of excellent rating (49.9) among all other groups, and it is followed by group four, three, two and one respectively. Similarly, the first group has the highest poor rating percentage (4.7) comparing to the other groups. This table shows the positive correlation between health and income levels. As one`s income increases, the frequency of excellent ratings increases. People with higher income tend to be healthier because they have a better diet, can afford to go to doctor for check-up, practice regularly, and live healthier lifestyle. Whereas people with low income may have to work in dangerous jobs, take more risks, still have to go work when sick, and depend on consuming unhealthy food. Therefore, the frequency distribution supports the health/income gradient clearly.

Coronary route illness , ischaemic stroke, diabetes, and a few explicit diseases, that up to the present purpose were traditional simply in high-pay nations, square measure presently turning into the prevailing wellsprings of dismalness and mortality overall . Likewise, rates of malignancies and vas complaint among vagrants from typically safe to high-hazard nations very often increment considerably. In standard African social orders, for example, is for all intents and functions nonexistent. These putting changes in rates within nations once it slow and among