Social class, life satisfaction and quality of health. Results of a representative assessment of the German population

The supposition that a higher risk of morbidity and mortality is connected with the belonging to a particular social class has been confirmed by numer ous national and international researches. But still unsolved is the questi on of how objective social situations do lead to individual processes of di sease. In order to solve this question in a representative assessment of th e german population, data of 2948 individuals, referring to aspects of life -satisfaction, personality subjective complaints and attitudes to current s tate of health, has been ascertained. In nearly all scales of the chosen in struments significant gradients connected to social class have been found. Persons belonging to a lower social class show a minor life satisfaction, s ignificant differences in personality higher subjective complaints and a po or state of health. This persons also seem to be convinced that they could do less to care for their health. This self-assessment indicates processes, that stand before the slate of manifestation of disease. They can be seen as an expression of persons mental reflection of their social situation. Wi thin the context of this analysis of social inequality and disease we argue to include psychological theories and stresstheory in sociological theorie s. They achieve an important contribution to the clarification of the inter face between social class, respectively life circumstances, experiences of distress, available resources of coping with the situation and the individu al process of development of disease.