Louise Warwick-Booth - Contemporary Health Studies

This chapter gives an insight into the relationship between health and culture, demonstrating the importance of lay beliefs in relation to understanding health and treatment. It is important for those completing undergraduate health programmes because it further enhances their knowledge about the importance of the social in relation to health. The chapter also facilitates the ability of the reader to make comparisons between a range of health contexts. The chapter is again relevant to any health professional because it creates an awareness of different cultural settings and draws attention to the importance of the everyday understandings (lay perspectives) that co-exist alongside medical and professional viewpoints.

This chapter focuses on a discipline that makes a major contribution to public health. Health psychology is fundamental in many ways and for many reasons, as it is about exploring the ways in which people behave in relation to their health. Underpinning behaviour is a range of complex influences, which this chapter explores, drawing on theory and recent research in the discipline. This chapter will be of interest to students on a range of health-related courses as well as those on health-professional courses, such as nursing, and other allied health professions that encourage and facilitate behaviour change at an individual level through one-to-one encounters. Of course, students of psychology, especially health psychology, will find this useful reading for their studies.

This chapter provides the reader with an introduction to health promotion and gives an overview of the frameworks used to underpin health-promotion practice. It also outlines the principles and values that underpin health promotion, so the chapter is an excellent introduction to all of those interested in learning about health promotion. The chapter is essential for students who are beginning to study health promotion across a range of subject areas, such as health studies, health promotion and public health. It is also a useful resource for inter-professional health care students and nurses who are often required to undertake health-promotion modules and is internationally relevant because health promotion is practised across the world in a variety of contexts.

Part III of the book takes the reader on a journey, looking at influences upon health, starting at the individual level and moving on to consider wider structural factors, such as the importance of global society. It draws explicitly on Dahlgren and Whitehead’s determinants of health model, using it as a framework for developing understanding about the determinants of health; the chapters are therefore structured to reflect this.

This chapter explores critically a range of individual characteristics that influence health. Some of the topics covered include foetal programming, the influence of age, the influence of biological sex and gender and the influence of personality. The range of subject matter means that it will be of general interest to students on a variety of different health-related courses. This chapter can be read alongside Chapter 6, which focuses on behaviour at an individual level. It may be of particular interest to students studying for a range of health professions that consider individual differences and development across the lifespan.

This chapter explores how social and community networks act as determinants of health. Two major concepts, social support and social capital, are defined and debated and evidence presented of their relationship to health status. The proposed mechanisms of how social support and social capital influence health are explained. In the final section the implications for policy-makers and practitioners of social and community network influences upon health are considered. This chapter is useful for all those studying public health, health promotion and health studies, as social capital is increasingly cited as an important health determinant and is used within contemporary policy. The chapter will also be of interest to those working with communities in any context, such as community development workers and community nurses.

This chapter considers a range of factors within our physical environments that impact on health. These include all of the factors that appear in Dahlgren and Whitehead’s framework, namely agriculture and food production, education, working environments, water and sanitation, and housing. Each factor is considered in critical depth, drawing on recent research findings and debate. This chapter may be of particular interest to students of environmental health; however, it will also have relevance to a wide variety of health-related courses.

Social policy permeates all areas of society and is the subject of everyday discussion and daily experiences. It is also controversial and often debated; hence this chapter is essential reading for anyone who is studying health because social policy is fundamentally about who is entitled to support from the state in terms of both health and welfare and the kinds of support that can and should be provided. The chapter explores what social policy is, how it is made, the ideological basis of policy and offers an insight into how many policy sectors have an impact upon health. The chapter draws specifically upon UK health policy and so is a useful resource for practitioners, nurses and students of health studies as a general introduction to the area.

Dahlgren and Whitehead’s framework does not make reference to the importance of the global context of health but, given the way in which the world is more closely connected through the processes associated with globalization, it is essential to understand how the global context influences and determines health outcomes. Globalization is a key determinant of health. This chapter uses the concept of globalization specifically to explore health within the global context, examining global health patterns, inequalities, health care and governance, including the Sustainable Development Goals. Given that health is global in so many respects, as this chapter demonstrates, this is an essential read for everyone studying health or working in a health profession.

Chapter 13 brings everything that has been discussed in previous chapters together. It provides three detailed case studies, which consider much of the content of the book in relation to specific and contemporary public-health challenges. The individual case studies are about malaria, cervical cancer, neighbourhoods and strategies to tackle COVID-19. Each case study introduces the issue in depth and then considers ways in which health might be promoted in relation to it. The chapter then considers Dahlgren and Whitehead’s determinants of health rainbow framework critically and in some depth, examining its strengths and how it might be improved upon. This chapter will be useful to those working in the public-health field because it demonstrates the application of different schools of knowledge to specific health problems. Consequently, readers gain practice-related insights here, as well as the ability to build upon the theoretical understandings provided across the earlier chapters.