Relevance to the health psychologist

Social Class and Health.

Section
1

Relevance to health psychology.

Why is the relationship between social class and health relevant to the health psychologist? Carroll et al (1996) suggest:

"The SES-health gradients might be regarded as a key test of the frequently evoked but imperfectly articulated biopsychosocial model of health championed by the newly formalised discipline of health psychology" (p. 36)

Reviews have identified several areas of possible psychosocial mediators of the social class-health link (Carroll et al, 1993):

Psychological stress (e.g. smoking: Why do people smoke? To reduce their stress levels?)
Social support (e.g. Orth-Gomer and Unden, 1990) have indicated that there is a relationship between social relationships and CHD mortality.

However, what can be done about this? How can health psychology help reduce the inequalities in health?

It must be stressed, however, that any model that must take into account the material explanations. As Wilkinson (1994) states that:

"Policies intended to divorce health from deprivation have proved largely ineffective." (p.114)

Exercise

Read Bywaters and McLeod (1996) and Benzeval et al (1996).

Exercise

Suggest how can the mortality statistics can be reduced between the classes. E-Mail your suggestions to your tutor.