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A socially situated approach to inform ways to improve health and wellbeing
Horrocks, Christine Johnson, Sally E.
Horrocks, Christine
Johnson, Sally E.
Publication Date
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© 2014 John Wiley & Sons. This is the accepted
version of the following article: Horrocks, C. and Johnson, S. (2014) A socially
situated approach to inform ways to improve health and wellbeing. Sociology of
Health & Illness, 36 (2); 175–186., which has been published in final form at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12114
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Accepted for publication
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Abstract
Mainstream health psychology supports neoliberal notions of health promotion in
which self-management is central. The emphasis is on models that explain
behaviour as individually driven and cognitively motivated, with health beliefs
framed as the favoured mechanisms to target in order to bring about change to
improve health. Utilising understandings exemplified in critical health psychology,
we take a more socially situated approach, focusing on practicing health, the
rhetoric of modernisation in UK health care and moves toward democratisation.
While recognising that within these new ways of working there are opportunities
for empowerment and user-led health care, there are other implications. How these
changes link to simplistic cognitive behavioural ideologies of health promotion and
rational decision-making is explored. Utilising two different empirical studies, this
article highlights how self-management and expected compliance with
governmental authority in relation to health practices position not only
communities that experience multiple disadvantage but also more seemingly
privileged social actors. The article presents a challenge to self-management and
informed choice, in which the importance of navigational networks is evident.
Because health care can become remote and inaccessible to certain sections of the
community, yet pervasive and deterministic for others, we need multiple levels of
analysis and different forms of action.
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Accepted manuscript
Citation
Horrocks C and Johnson S (2014) A socially situated approach to inform ways to improve health and wellbeing. Sociology of Health & Illness. 36(2): 175-186.
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