Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Books: Research
This chapter considers research evidence that links early life factors to adverse health outcomes and discusses the significance of early life experiences to health inequalities. It suggests that it is theoretically possible to identify the kinds of policy interventions that could improve the healthy development of young children from disadvantaged backgrounds by linking epidemiological evidence that highlights key risk factors to evidence of the social context of risk. It identifies key areas for intervention which include smoking cessation, nutrition and parenting education.
This chapter focuses on the health behaviours outlined in the previous chapter from research evidence which suggested the key targets for intervention to be: smoking cessation, nutrition and parenting education. It outlines the range of effective interventions at our disposal and considers the local delivery of two important structural targets: early-years education and childcare. It concludes that the most effective interventions tend to be multifaceted, ranging from education and health through to social inclusion and community development.
This chapter examines policy and practice for addressing health inequalities during adulthood. It discusses the key sources of vulnerability including lifestyle, psychosocial health and material living conditions and analyses the evidence base for what works and the relationship of what works to the policy environment. It suggests that the evidence base for interventions targeting psychosocial health and material deprivation is far more tenuous than for behavioural interventions targeting lifestyle.
This chapter examines research evidence concerning health inequalities during adulthood. It discusses the result of lifecourse research suggesting that both childhood and adult circumstances influence health variations. The chapter describes the complex picture that emerges of the determinants of social inequalities in adult mortality. The research also indicates that the relative importance of early and later life determinants of mortality varies according to cause of death and that the differential effects of childhood and adult exposures may also change over time.
This chapter examines policy interventions targeting accidents and injuries and mental health, the two main areas of health inequality during childhood and youth. It highlights the shift to prevention and the stress on partnership in addressing these two issues. It proposes the addition of family therapy, home-school partnerships and community regeneration to preventive strategies such as parent education, home visiting and preschool education.
This chapter explores some of the methodological considerations involved in the investigation of health inequalities among children and young people. It examines social variations in current mortality and morbidity and discusses the social variations in current mortality and morbidity in this age group. The analysis reveals persuasive evidence of health inequalities with respect to accidents and injuries and mental health.
This chapter explores the consequences of poverty and income polarisation for health inequalities in later life. It discusses the extent to which age is a more important source of health exclusion for older people than socio-economic status per se. It suggests that though differentials in health status decline after middle age, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that lower socio-economic status is associated with greater mortality, poorer mental health and a higher prevalence of disability among older people.
In recent years, tackling health inequalities has become a key policy objective in the UK. However, doubts remain about how best to translate broad policy recommendations into practice. One key area of uncertainty concerns the role of local-level initiatives. This book identifies the key targets for intervention through a detailed exploration of the pathways and processes that give rise to health inequalities across the lifecourse. It sets this against an examination of both local practice and the national policy context, to establish what works in health inequalities policy, how and why. The book provides a comprehensive account of theory, policy and practice. It spans the lifecourse from the early years to old age and explores the links between biological, psychological, social, educational and economic factors and a range of health outcomes. In addition, the book describes key policy initiatives, assesses research evidence of ‘what works’, examines the limitations of the existing evidence base and highlights key areas of debate.
This chapter examines the influence of youth culture on social class differences in health behaviours. The findings indicate that problematic risk behaviours such as smoking and hard drug misuse during youth are strongly associated with social deprivation and that dietary patterns during childhood and youth vary significantly according to socio-economic status. It also considers the impact of two factors of the socio-economic trajectories of children and young people: education and the experience of being in care.
This chapter focuses on three significant areas where health behaviour is markedly unequal in children and youth: diet and nutrition, substance abuse, sexual health, together with education and employment. It discusses the evidence base of interventions targeting these areas and recent developments in policy and practice. It suggests that the growing interest in the relationship between childhood disadvantage and adult health has quite rightly addressed the neglect of early life influences in a literature previously dominated by a concentration on adult risk factors for chronic adulthood disease.
