'Health Inequalities Persist.' Discuss in relation to health and Essay

'Health Inequalities Persist.' Discuss in relation to health and health care - Essay Example In virtually all societies some people are regarded as more important than the others, more worthy of respect or more useful than others either within the society as a whole or in certain situations. This position relative to that of other people in the Group is called ‘status or class’ and may be based on many factors such as wealth, heredity, possessions, sex education, skin colour, job or age. Thus according to Gerard O’Donnell (1994:370), class is defined as: a broad category of people within a society who have similar social and economic status. Although primarily based on economic factors, such as ownership or occupation, class also encompasses attributes such as lifestyles and attitudes. In this context, status is a person’s social position as defined by others and the person with a high status is regarded as more worthy of respect, accorded more esteem and has more prestige within that social group. Usually people who occupy high class positions are generally richer than those who occupy lower classes and they have more wealth through earnings or investment. In this regard, a wealthy person enjoys access to better life chances such as heath care, education and shelter. Research has shown that the notion of class or status in society has a bearing especially on access to health care facilities. This notion was illustrated by a report, Inequalities in Health, sponsored by the Department of Health and Social Security in 1980, commonly referred to as the Black Report. It found a close link between class and life expectance. The report commented: ‘the class gradient can be observed for most causes of death and the lower the person’s social class, the more likely they are to suffer an illness that they have had for a considerable time.’ The report concluded that the lack of improvement, in some cases deterioration of the health experience of the unskilled and semi skilled manual classes throughout the 1960s was