Social Determinants Of Health And Social Class

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The aim of this essay will evaluate the impact that social status has on health and class in society. It will look at how Marmot’s Report makes a connection between people socioeconomic and health. As will be see, Marmot’s construct of health looks at a social gradient of health, which presupposes that the higher your income the better your health and vice versa. This essay will also explain Marx theory of social class and structure in society. It will also make the case that both theories see status and economics as the main cause of inequality, irrespective of it being health or class. The conclusion will then say that the overreliance of technology has been the main cause of poor health for people and social mobility is a consequence of more than class.

Marmot published a report in 2010 on health inequality in the UK, which built on the World Health Organisations’ construct of health where health and provision aims as achieving a whole sense of physical and social well-being, not just disability. His report saw this as ideal of the UK in its pursuit of improving populace health. Marmot believed that the wider or social determinants of someone’s social status dictated their level of health and well. For him, the poorer (deprived) people were, the more likely they were to experience disease and disability. Marmot develop a theory of the social gradient, where people at the upper curve experienced better health than people at the bottom, which was a social fact that blighted our society, and to ensure a fairer and more healthy society needed to be addressed. The second assertion that he made was that many of the causes of poor health among poorer people were avoidable and preventable (Marmot, 2010).

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The Marmot Report, named ‘Reasonable Society, Healthy Lives’, in this way proposes another approach to lessen wellbeing disparities in England post, 2010. It talk about that, customarily, government arrangements have concentrated assets just on certain sections of society. To show signs of improvement wellbeing for the entirety of individuals and to decrease out of line imbalances in wellbeing, activity I required over the social slope. A portion of the significant declaration of the Review are: diminishing wellbeing disparities involves decency and social equity; there is asocial slope in wellbeing ( the lower an individual’s social position, the more regrettable their health); health imbalances result from social imbalances; to decrease the steepness of the social inclination in wellbeing, activity must be all inclusive; move made to lessen wellbeing disparities will profit society from multiple points of view; monetary development isn’t the most significant proportion of accomplishment; lessening wellbeing disparities will require activity on six goals; conveying these arrangement targets will require activity by focal and neighbourhood government, the NHS and private segments; successful nearby conveyance requires viable participatory basic leadership at nearby level. (Marmot, Review Report, 2010)

The Marmot Review takes a gander at the distinctions in wellbeing and prosperity between social gatherings and portrays how the social inclination on wellbeing disparities is reflected in the social slope on instructive accomplishment, work, salary, nature of neighbourhood, etc. In tending to wellbeing disparities, the Review states that it isn’t adequate just to concentrate on the last 10 per cent on the grounds that there are more unfortunate results right down from the top. General activity is expected to

Key to Marmot’s way to deal with tending to wellbeing imbalances is to make the conditions for individuals to assume responsibility for their own lives (Marmot, Review report, 2010, p). This requires activity over the social determinants of wellbeing and past the scope of the NHS.

Fundamental to the Review is the acknowledgement that weakness begins before birth and amasses all through life. This is reflected in the 6 arrangement targets and to the most elevated need being given to the primary goal: giving each kid the best start in live; empowering all youngsters, youngsters and grown-ups to boost their abilities and have power over their lives; making reasonable business and great work for all; guaranteeing a solid way of life for all;making and creating manageable spots and networks; fortifying the job and effect of sick wellbeing counteractive action (Marmot, 2010)

Marx theory examines the connection between the social class and health and matches the aspects that determinate the social class. For him, class is any gathering of individuals sharing basic relations to work and the methods for generation. ‘During the time spent generation, people work upon nature, yet in addition upon each other. They produce just by cooperating in a predetermined way and proportionally trading their exercises. So as to create, they go into unequivocal associations and relations does their impact upon nature work (Marx, Wage Labor and Capital, 1847)

The fundamental trademark which can determinate where one fit in social class is that who controls the controls the means of production, who claimed the assets important to create what individuals need to endure. The well off would be the people who possessed the land and processing plants. The well off would at that point control all components of society – including the employments of the lower, regular workers. The lower, regular workers would work for time-based compensations on the land or in the plants (Marx, 1847)

The bourgeoisie can’t exist without always upsetting the instruments of generation, and in this manner the relations of creation, and with them the entire relations of society. Preservation of the old methods of generation in unaltered structure, was, in actuality, the primary state of presence for all prior mechanical classes. Consistent upsetting of creation, continuous aggravation of every social condition, everlasting vulnerability and unsettling recognize the middle class age from every single prior one.

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx expressed, ”The proletarians have nothing to lose except for their chains. They have a world to win.” Thus, Marx had required a labourers’ insurgency where the proletarians would ascend against the bourgeoisie, ousting free enterprise Proletariat- that is a working class-who are exploited for their wage labour. The working class only can work, to produce goods and services, but the profits go the ruling class. These two classes exist with great inequalities between them and that is based on the private idea of property.” (Marks and Engels, 2016)

Marx believed that “the connection that people have with the economy reflect everything else – ideas, culture, belief system, connection in the society”. Throughout history, society do some transformation from the feudal society into capitalist society, which is based on two social classes, which are untrusting and antagonistic towards each other due to the unequal relations of production and ultimately existence (Marx and Engels, 2016). .

According to Marx theory of social class, if look at all human societies, they always of some kind of “class based” on shape or form. By this, at the most basic level of interpretation, Marx accept that in each known human culture there has been a key division between two wide social groups: one gathering has constantly possessed and controlled the central material assets that are important or the upkeep of social presence and one gathering has not claimed or control the creation of such things. (Marks, 1847)

“The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie” (Marx, 1847)

In conclusion this essay has said how Marmot is key to understanding how health is determined by people’s background, which is preventable and should be a key element of society to create a fairer society. Still, the overreliance of people using technology has led to an increase of sedative lifestyles and poor health, which means that a social change will need to happen, if health is to be addressed affectively in society. This essay has also noted how Marx sees society and the inequalities connected to it, as a buy product of the unequal relations of production and economics, which forms the basis of classes (ruling and working classes). However, there are many other things that determine inequality in society, such as immigration, discrimination and age, which Marx did not address in his theory.

References

  1. Bonner A. (2017), Social determinants of health Paperback, Policy Press, Bristol, UK
  2. Marmot, M. (2004), The status syndrome: How social standing affects our health and longevity, London, Bloomsbury Publishing
  3. Marx K. and Friedrich E. (2016), The Communist Manifesto, Chiron Academic Press, USA
  4. Marmot, M. (2005), Social determinants of health inequalities, The Lancet, Vol 365, March 19, 2005; Available at: https://www.who.int/social_determinants/strategy/en/Marmot-Social%20determinants%20of%20health%20inqualities.pdf, (Accessed 15 November 2019)
  5. Marmot M., Allen J., Goldblatt P. et al (2010) Fair society, healthy lives: strategic review of health inequalities, Available at: http://www.instituteofhealthequity.org/resources-reports/fair-society-healthy-lives-the-marmot-review/fair-society-healthy-lives-full-report-pdf.pdf, (Assessed 11 November 2019)
  6. Marmot M. (2010), World Health Organization, Revised Report from 1948; Available at: http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/98438/e81384.pdf (Accessed 15 November 2019),
  7. Marmot M. (2010) “Fair Society, Healthy Lives”; Review Report, Available at:
  8. https://www.institutetofhealtequity.org; (Accessed 19 November 2019)
  9. Marx K. (1847) Wage Labour and Capital, available at: http://burawoy.berkeley.edu/Reader.101/M&E.II.pdf; (Assessed 19 November 2019)
  10. Wilkinson R. and Marmot M. (2003), Social Determinants of Health, Solid Facts, Second Edition, WHO Library Cataloguing in Publication Data, ISBN 92 890 1371 0, Available at: http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/98438/e81384.pdf (Assessed 19 November 2019)

Further Reading

  1. www.marxists.org (Accessed 19 November 2019)
  2. www.britannica.com (Accessed 19 November 2019)
  3. www.sparknotes.com; (Accessed 19 November 2019) 

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