scholarly journals Framework for understanding health inequalities over the life course: the embodiment dynamic and biological mechanisms of exogenous and endogenous origin

2021 ◽  
pp. jech-2021-216430
Author(s):  
Michelle Kelly-Irving ◽  
Cyrille Delpierre
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Health Inequalities ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Biological Processes ◽  
Dynamic Framework ◽  
The Past ◽  
Genetic Essentialism ◽  
The Life Course

Understanding how structural, social and psychosocial factors come to affect our health resulting in health inequalities is more relevant now than ever as trends in mortality gaps between rich and poor appear to have widened over the past decades. To move beyond description, we need to hypothesise about how structural and social factors may cause health outcomes. In this paper, we examine the construction of health over the life course through the lens of influential theoretical work. Based on concepts developed by scholars from different disciplines, we propose a novel framework for research on social-to-biological processes which may be important contributors to health inequalities. We define two broad sets of mechanisms that may help understand how socially structured exposures become embodied: mechanisms of exogenous and endogenous origin. We describe the embodiment dynamic framework, its uses and how it may be combined with an intersectional approach to examine how intermeshed oppressions affect social exposures which may be expressed biologically. We explain the usefulness of this framework as a tool for carrying out research and providing scientific evidence to challenge genetic essentialism, often used to dismiss social inequalities in health.

scholarly journals A framework for understanding health inequalities over the life course: the embodiment dynamic and biological mechanisms of exogenous and endogenous origin

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Kelly-Irving ◽  
Cyrille Delpierre
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Health Inequalities ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Biological Processes ◽  
Dynamic Framework ◽  
The Past ◽  
Genetic Essentialism ◽  
The Life Course

Understanding how structural, social and psychosocial factors come to affect our health resulting in health inequalities is more relevant now than ever as trends in mortality gaps between rich and poor appear to have widened over the past decades. To move beyond description, we need to hypothesize about how structural and social factors may cause health outcomes. In this paper we examine the construction of health over the life course through the lens of influential theoretical work. Based on concepts developed by scholars from different disciplines, we propose a novel framework for research on social-to-biological processes which may be important contributors to health inequalities. We define two broad sets of mechanisms that may help understand how socially structured exposures become embodied: mechanisms of exogenous and endogenous origin. We describe the embodiment dynamic framework, its uses and how it may be combined with an intersectional approach to best capture how intermeshed oppressions affect social exposures which may be expressed biologically. We explain how this framework may be a tool for carrying out research and provide scientific evidence to challenge genetic essentialism, often used to dismiss social inequalities in health.

Population Aging, Intracohort Aging, and Sociopolitical Attitudes

2007 ◽  
Vol 72 (5) ◽  
pp. 812-830 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas L. Danigelis ◽  
Melissa Hardy ◽  
Stephen J. Cutler
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Population Aging ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Sociopolitical Attitudes ◽  
The Life Course

Prevailing stereotypes of older people hold that their attitudes are inflexible or that aging tends to promote increasing conservatism in sociopolitical outlook. In spite of mounting scientific evidence demonstrating that learning, adaptation, and reassessment are behaviors in which older people can and do engage, the stereotype persists. We use U.S. General Social Survey data from 25 surveys between 1972 and 2004 to formally assess the magnitude and direction of changes in attitudes that occur within cohorts at different stages of the life course. We decompose changes in sociopolitical attitudes into the proportions attributable to cohort succession and intracohort aging for three categories of items: attitudes toward historically subordinate groups, civil liberties, and privacy. We find that significant intracohort change in attitudes occurs in cohorts-inlater- stages (age 60 and older) as well as cohorts-in-earlier-stages (ages 18 to 39), that the change for cohorts-in-later-stages is frequently greater than that for cohorts-inearlier-stages, and that the direction of change is most often toward increased tolerance rather than increased conservatism. These findings are discussed within the context of population aging and development.

Deprivation and health

2020 ◽  
pp. 157-160
Author(s):  
Harry Burns
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Health Inequalities ◽  
Meaning In Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Sense Of Purpose ◽  
The Life Course

The health of an individual is influenced by the circumstances in which he or she lives. Individuals who live in poverty are more likely to be unhealthy and die younger than individuals who are wealthy. The mechanism by which complex social circumstances cause health inequalities might be a failure to create capacity to manage life’s challenges. Most agree that well-being is created where individuals have an optimistic outlook, a sense that they are in control of their own lives, a sense of purpose and meaning in life, confidence in their ability to deal with problems, a supportive network of friends, and a nurturing family. If society is serious about tackling health inequalities, action needs to happen across the life course.

Positive Emotion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica M. Black
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Physical Health ◽  
Positive Emotion ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Late Adulthood ◽  
Physical Resources ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Mental And Physical Health

Scientific findings from social sciences, neurobiology, endocrinology, and immunology highlight the adaptive benefits of positive emotion and activity to both mental and physical health. Positive activity, such as engagement with music and exercise, can also contribute to favorable health outcomes. This article reviews scientific evidence of the adaptive benefits of positive emotion and activity throughout the life course, with examples drawn from the fetal environment through late adulthood. Specifically, the text weaves together theory and empirical findings from an interdisciplinary literature to describe how positive emotion and activity help to build important cognitive, social, and physical resources throughout the life course.

Celebrating nostalgia or critiquing naivety: Reading pop music reunions through discourses of the fan life course

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Driessen
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Pop Music ◽  
Current Position ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Life Course

This study explores how fans give meaning to pop music reunions through the lens of the life course. It does so through a content analysis of forum comments about TV series The Big Reunion, which reunites chart-topping music acts from the past decades. The fans interpret The Big Reunion in three modes closely related to their life-course position: first, now young adults, the fans read the reunion as a nostalgic phenomenon. Second, they consider the reunion as an ironic event. Third, they question The Big Reunion’s formula by reflecting on it through the prism of their current position in the life course. These readings reveal how the fans celebrate a nostalgic reflection on the pop acts of their youth; yet also offer a critique on their former, ‘naïve’ teenage/child-selves.

ADA at 25 and People With Cognitive Disabilities: From Voice to Action

Inclusion ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 46-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Blanck
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Americans With Disabilities Act ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Medical Model ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
25Th Anniversary ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Life Course

Abstract The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, and the ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA) of 2008, are effecting dramatic changes in the perception of cognitive and other disabilities, from primarily viewing disability as a medical state to be cured and pitied toward acceptance of disability as an element of human experience and self-identity. The ADA's modern understanding of disability is as much shaped by diversity in biology, local culture, and self-identity over the life course, as it is by the barriers to inclusion we build and maintain in society. This view reflects the paradigm shift from the prior and dominating medical model to a social and environmental approach to disability civil and human rights. This two-part special issue of the journal Inclusion examines the ADA at its 25th anniversary. The articles reflect on the past 25 years, examine the present, and anticipate the future to ensure continued progress towards the civil and human rights of individuals with cognitive and other disabilities.

scholarly journals Retirement as a lens for socioeconomic differences in Cognition and well-being

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefanie König ◽  
Magnus Lindwall ◽  
Georg Henning ◽  
Boo Johansson
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Older Workers ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Work Role ◽  
Socioeconomic Differences ◽  
Health Aging ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Life Course

This study conceptualizes retirement as a lens with regard to patterns of social inequality across the life course. It investigates if socioeconomic differences in well-being and cognitive performance differ between older workers and retirees, using data from the HEARTS (Health, Aging and Retire- ment Transitions in Sweden) study. The results provide evidence for retirement as a positive lenswith regard to cognition, following the ‘use it or lose it’ hypothesis. We also find evidence for retire- ment as a negative lens with regard to well-being, supporting the cumulative (dis-)advantages theory.We test different aspects of socioeconomic status, that is, education, income, occupationalgroup, and subjective work aspects and find the strongest effects for education. Hence, this studycontributes with an understanding of mechanisms behind social inequalities over the life-course by using retirement and the loss of the work role as a marker for potential change

scholarly journals Health inequalities and the welfare state: perspectives from social epidemiology

2009 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
George A. Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Health Inequalities ◽  
Social Epidemiology ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Inequality Of Opportunity ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Low Socioeconomic ◽  
Health Related ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
The Welfare State

It might be assumed that welfare states that have done so much to reduce inequality of opportunity have also reduced inequality of health outcomes. While great advances have been seen in reducing the rates of many diseases in welfare states, disparities in health have not been eliminated. Is it the case that lowering risks overall will leave disparities that cannot be remediated, and that such efforts are at the point of diminishing returns? The evidence suggests that this is not true. Instead the lens of social epidemiology can be used to identify groups that are at unequal risk and to suggest strategies for reducing health inequalities through upstream, midstream, and downstream interventions. The evidence suggests that these interventions be targeted at low socioeconomic position, place-based limitations in opportunities and resources, stages of the life course and the accumulation of disadvantage across the life course, and the underlying health-related factors that are associated with the marginalization and exclusion of certain groups. In their commitment to the values of equity and social justice, welfare states have unique opportunities to demonstrate the extent to which health inequalities can be eliminated.

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