Collection: Health Inequalities
As a taster of our publishing on Health Inequalities, we put together a collection of free articles, chapters and open access titles. If you are interested in trying out more content from our Health and Social Care collection or Global Social Challenges themes, ask your librarian to sign up for a free trial.
Health Inequalities Collection
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Support from family or friends is fundamental to people dying at home. Understanding what impacts unpaid carer resilience is essential if services are to support them effectively. Seven databases were searched using a scoping review methodology. Delimiters included date, geographical area and language. A total of 647 articles were identified, with 11 articles meeting the inclusion criteria. Most studies focused on coping strategies (n = 9), not resilience. Nearly all identified studies involved bereaved carers (n = 9), with no studies focusing purely on current unpaid carer experience. Further research is needed to explore what current unpaid carers identify as impacting their resilience.
Population ageing is one of the most impactful phenomena in contemporary Western societies. COVID-19 put great pressure on worldwide public health and long-term care (LTC) systems, demanding substantial investments in search of new sustainability. This study analyses the opinions of European experts on the positive and negative aspects of the impact of COVID-19 on their national LTC systems to identify valuable lessons and innovative policies for European LTC strategy after this recent health emergency. A content analysis was performed on interviews with and focus groups of experts and stakeholders from selected countries. The findings argue for an innovative, open and comprehensive LTC model.
The chapter begins by telling the story of Michael O’Sullivan who died in London in 2013. This is the first of seven personal stories of those affected by the policies of austerity. His story is told by his daughter and attests to his experience of mental ill-health and a work capability assessment which ultimately found him fit for work, but which led directly to his suicide.
This individual story is then put in the context of population statistics, whereby life expectancy had steadily improved in the UK from 1945 until around 2012, after which it stopped improving overall, and actually went into reverse among those living in the 20 per cent most socioeconomically deprived areas of the UK. The chapter describes how these changes to life expectancy and mortality rates are unprecedented in modern times, and hugely concerning.
The chapter concludes by setting out the content of the rest of the book.
This chapter introduces wellbeing as an essential concern for all people and oft-espoused aim for human societies. However, as the author explains, there is a fundamental problem: the ideas and strategies we currently apply to (supposedly) define, measure, and promote wellbeing are missing essential information. This information is available in evidence from multiple disciplines but not being brought together and used to inform public policy. The aim of the book, then, is to fill in this missing piece, and strengthen shared perspectives on what wellbeing is and how societies can act to promote wellbeing for all. The chapter sets out the book’s multi-disciplinary approach to unpack and address this challenge. Founding concepts of social intelligence, acute stress, chronic stress, and psychological wellbeing are introduced and defined.
The definitions for equality and equity are shared and discussed as an introduction to examining the factors that contribute to avoidable inequalities. The chapter includes the current challenges and points out why they matter. Commissioners are directed in their efforts as the discussion unfolds to identifying and addressing inequalities. The chapter includes examination of the Core20PLUS5 approach and specific examples of how inequalities have been tackled. Other specific topics include unpaid carers and how they can be supported, plus the need for a diverse and inclusive workforce.
This book analyzes trans health in the UK through two key questions. Firstly, what barriers are there between trans people and the ability to access quality healthcare? Secondly, when they are able to at all, how do trans people overcome those barriers? I have found that there are significant and unique obstacles that delay or prevent trans people from accessing both transition and non-transition related healthcare. However, I have also found that in many cases trans people are able to overcome or at least push back against these barriers in creative and effective ways. Understanding these barriers suggests demedicalization as a solution, which brings up a central tension that will be addressed in this book, one between demedicalizing transness and ensuring continued access to medical technologies for trans people who require them. Additionally, I outline a trans methodology which has developed throughout the course of this research. Overall this work paints a picture of a healthcare system struggling to meet the needs of a population and illuminates what we can learn from that population’s response to that struggle.
The focus in Chapter Eleven is on conceiving and delivering effective policies and practices given the very real, entrenched structural, cultural and agential obstacles to their construction implementation. While the bulk of the chapter addresses the situation in core countries such as the UK, the discussion has sustained relevance also to the global context. Sample sets of ‘attainable’ to ‘aspirational’ change in relation to national and global health inequalities, climate change and warfare are broached and defended as part of a programme of ‘permanent reform’.
This study examines the prevalence of multidimensional social exclusion and associated factors of exclusion from social relations among formal home care recipients aged 65 and over. The survey data (n = 553) were collected in 2022 in Finland. The results show that almost half of respondents had difficulties making ends meet, almost a third felt lonely fairly often or all the time, 44 per cent were isolated, 20 per cent did not receive adequate help and support, and 41 per cent did not have enough possibilities to go outside. Getting inadequate help and support was associated with both loneliness and social isolation.
In this chapter, the limits and strengths of working life-oriented analyses are considered in terms of the rise of mental vulnerability. The analysis highlights how research into changes in the labour market has understood the causes of mental health problems and how the quality of work has been viewed to have deteriorated. It also analyses how the research on the importance of work control has been essential for work sociology and work stress research. The latter part of the chapter discusses the role of precarization of work as a potential explanation for the emergence of mental vulnerability. The chapter concludes that the intensification of work and the spread of labour market with precariat characteristics may have contributed to the surge of mental vulnerability. However, simply looking at changes in the nature and intensity of work, material and economic explanations do not fully capture the socio-historical changes framing employees, professionals, other stakeholders of work and their understanding of mental vulnerability.
The fundamental question at the heart of public health policy is how it can be that cost-effective measures to promote the health of the population are not more vigorously implemented. The question has become more urgent as the pressures on the NHS have increased. Behind the implementation deficit, this chapter examines the role that a dominant public philosophy of libertarianism has played. That public philosophy is plagued with a number of problems, and in its place this chapter argues for a philosophy of social individualism in which the role of government-provided public goods is central to creating the conditions for effective individual choice and fulfilment. The chapter concludes with a manifesto of practical public health measures.
