The image of health: variations in perception by social class in a French population

d'Houtaud, A; Field, Mark G.

doi:10.1111/1467-9566.ep10777358

Cited by 102 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…This definition of wellness focuses on the absence of (physical) problems rather than on any positive abilities or characteristics, and as such is a lay version of a biomedical definition of health. This theme was documented in early large-scale qualitative work carried out in France (d 'Houtaud & Field, 1984, 1986 which suggested that such ideas were more common in people aged over 50 and in manual workers. Williams also describes the absence of illness account in his research with Scottish participants aged 60 and over living in 'working class' areas (Williams, 1983).…”

Section: /11/08mentioning

confidence: 93%

The development and initial validation of a new measure of lay definitions of health: The wellness beliefs scale

Bishop

Yardley

2010

Psychology & Health

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The objective was to develop a psychometrically sound questionnaire measure of lay people's beliefs about the importance of different signs of wellness (the Wellness Beliefs Scale, WBS).Questionnaire items were derived from qualitative literature. 942 people (recruited from the community and patient support groups) participated in 2 cross-sectional studies using paper and web-based questionnaires. Study 1 participants completed the initial version of the WBS. Study 2 participants completed the revised version of the WBS and existing measures of health beliefs, illness perceptions, and health status. Factor analysis confirmed that the WBS measures 3 distinct wellness beliefs: belief in the importance of biomedical (absence of illness), functional (ability to carry out daily tasks), and wellbeing (vitality) indicators of wellness. The 3 resulting subscales all had good internal consistency and could be used to cluster participants into 3 groups. Wellness belief scores were related to gender, health status and subjective health; there were few associations with health beliefs. In conclusion, the WBS is a promising new measure of 3 distinct wellness beliefs, with good initial psychometric properties, which could potentially be used to better target individualised health promotion interventions. Weinman, Petrie, Moss-Morris, & Horne, 1996). This focus on illness rather than health is justifiable, but an extended focus to include the study of health is now being recognised as important. As Lawton (2003) has argued, comparatively little is known about how lay people think about health and yet 'healthy' people are increasingly the subject of health promotion interventions and other forms of medical attention. The need to attend to health beliefs and behaviours, as distinct from illness beliefs and behaviours, was emphasised by Rakowski (1984) and there is a reasonably extensive qualitative literature on lay perceptions of wellness (for a review see Hughner & Kleine, 2004). This study was inspired by and draws on that qualitative literature in order to develop a questionnaire measure of lay definitions of wellness.Despite recent developments in positive psychology, people's perceptions of wellness have not been widely incorporated into main-stream health psychology. There is no established or widely used theoretical framework for thinking about the impact of wellness beliefs on health and illness behaviours and there are no well-validated measures of lay perceptions of wellness.However, three lines of argument suggest that wellness beliefs could be an important construct for and indeed a necessary addition to health psychology.

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Section: /11/08mentioning

confidence: 93%

The development and initial validation of a new measure of lay definitions of health: The wellness beliefs scale

Bishop

Yardley

2010

Psychology & Health

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“…In this respect, perhaps the first and most obvious area of application concerns the fact that these differing social class orientations towards the body are evident in lay concepts of health and illness (Blaxter and Patterson 1982, Blaxter 1983, Crawford 1984, d'Houtaud and Field 1984, Pill and Stott 1985, Calnan 1987, Blaxter 1990, Stainton-Rogers 1991, Saltonstall 1993, Thus in d' Houtaud and Field's (1984) study of a French population's views of health, for instance, it was found that, for members of the privileged classes, health is appropriated by the individual and employed in a hedonistic way through the expressive use of the body (i.e. seen in abstract terms), whereas the health of working-class people, in contrast, is utilised for the benefit of society (i.e.…”

Section: The Body Class and Lifestyles: Health And The Search For DImentioning

confidence: 99%

Theorising class, health and lifestyles: can Bourdieu help us?

Williams

1995

Sociology Health & Illness

298

286

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What is the relationship between class, health and life-styles, and to what extent does health-related knowledge influence subsequent behaviour? These issues have been a source of considerable debate for medical sociologists and others concerned with promoting 'healthier' life-styles over the years. Yet despite a wealth of empirical material, there has been httle attempt to theorise this relationship between class, health and lifestyles and the associated issues of structure and agency, accounts and action it raises. This paper attempts to rectify this lacuna through a critical discussion of the work of Pierre Bourdieu, and its relevance to the class, health and life-styles debate. In particular, attention is paid to Bourdieu's analysis of the logic of practice, his concepts of habitus and bodily hexis, and the search for social distinction in the construction of (health-related) life-styles. The paper concludes with a critical commentary on these issues and the relative merits of Bourdieu's analysis for the sociology of health and illness. It is argued that despite certain limitations regarding issues of agency and 'choice', Bourdieu's analysis does indeed shed important light on the health and lifestyles debate, and that further bridge-building exercises of this nature between mainstream theory and the sociology of health and illness are both necessary and fruitful

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“…When researchers speak of health beliefs they usually refer to a niunber of issues: how people in general regard health matters as compared with medical practitioners (Blumhagen, 1980); how ordinary people give lay accounts of their experiences of ill-health during their lifetime (Blaxter 1983, Williams 1990), how they think about avoiding disease (Herzlich 1973, Pill andStott 1982) how they define health (Baumann 1961, Blaxter 1990 or how people in different sections of society hold different views about health matters (Blair 1993, Calnan 1987, d'Houtaud and Field 1984, Pierret 1993.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accounts of health and illness: Dilemmas and representations

Radley¹,

Billig²

1996

Sociology Health & Illness

275

244

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This paper argues that people's views of health and illness are best understood as accounts that they give to others. In that sense, such beliefs are neither the expression of fixed inner attitudes, nor evidence for shared social representations. Instead, we emphasise the importance of seeing health talk as both ideological and dilemmatic. The paper explores the way in which individuals who speak of health (or illness) in general must also give an account of their health in particular.Reviewing the distinction between 'private' and 'public' accounts, the article discusses the various rhetorical devices by which this is achieved. This shows how people's talk about health both defines their social fitness and exemplifies their claims to being ill or healthy.

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The image of health: variations in perception by social class in a French population

Cited by 102 publications

References 8 publications

The development and initial validation of a new measure of lay definitions of health: The wellness beliefs scale

The development and initial validation of a new measure of lay definitions of health: The wellness beliefs scale

Theorising class, health and lifestyles: can Bourdieu help us?

Accounts of health and illness: Dilemmas and representations

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