WHOSE FAULT IS IT - PEOPLES OWN CONCEPTIONS OF THE REASONS FOR HEALTHINEQUALITIES

How do people themselves think about inequalities in health? The topic has rarely been investigated, and oblique evidence has to be drawn fr om research on general lay ideas about health and the causes of illnes s. Data from a large British survey are combined with a review of the extensive body of. more usually, qualitative research on attitudes to health in Western industrialised societies. One tentative conclusion i s that social inequality in health is not a topic which is very promin ent in lay presentations, and paradoxically this is especially true am ong those who are most likely to be exposed to disadvantaging environm ents. Possible explanations are offered in terms of the effects of wid espread ''health promotion'' activities, and the way in which lay theo rising incorporates relationships between the group and the individual . The methods used in asking people to talk about health are also rele vant: accounts of health and illness are accounts of social identity, and it is unreasonable to expect people to devalue that identity by la belling their own ''inequality''. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.