Health

• Explain why health is a social construct - as society we define what is seen as healthy and how people are treated for their health.
• Summarise the findings of the black report - it found that even though there are improvements in the national health however there was more of a divide in health between the middle and working classes. The divide is between gender, age, class and ethnicity. Research after the Black Report agrees that the health divide continues to exist. Working class children are more likely than the middle class to be born with a low birth weight.
• 1. Summarise the sociological explanations for continuing inequalities in health - There are inaccurate statistics, natural selection, structural explanations and cultural explanations.
• • Inaccurate statistics - doctors can be quicker to label different diseases for different social groups than others. However researchers accept that class differences in health don’t come from inaccurate statistics and are real. 
• • Natural selection - if you are healthy you are more likely to have secure and well paid employment
• • Structural explanations - inequalities in health can come from individual circumstances such as; substandard housing, poor working conditions, low income, environmental factors and inadequate access to services. 
• • Cultural explanations - lifestyle is different between social classes because of behaviours like; smoking, alcohol consumption, poor diet, low levels of physical exercise, and engaging in high-risk activities. This can then lead to those with poor health being blamed for making bad choices in their life. Working class people who smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol are more likely to die young than those who are middle class and have made the same ‘bad choices’. Also and low income that some individuals have can limit their ability to choose a healthy lifestyle.
• How would the functionalist, marxist and feminist perspective explain life chances? 

  • Functionalist - the idea that they see inequality as a necessity for society and that some individuals will have better life chances than others in society. 
  • Feminist - they would believe that men get the better life chances and that the chances that women have will still benefit men because we live in a patriarchal society where the men oppress the women