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The article discusses information about the 27th Sociology of Health and Illness Monograph. Topics covered include the emergence of the construct of overdiagnosis, the impact of diagnostic, prognostic, and treatment uncertainty on the lay-professional interface, and organisational and health system level responses to uncertainty.

This paper takes a critical look at the role of chronobiology in society today, with particular reference to its entanglements with health and medicine and whether or not this amounts to the (bio)medicalisation of our bodily rhythms. What we have here, we show, is a complex unfolding storyline, within and beyond medicine. On the one hand, the promises and problems of these circadian, infradian and ultradian rhythms for our health and well‐being are now increasingly emphasised. On the other hand, a variety of new rhythmic interventions and forms of governance are now emerging within and beyond medicine, from chronotherapies and chronopharmacology to biocompatible school and work schedules, and from chronodiets to the optimisation of all we do according to our 'chronotypes'. Conceptualising these developments, we suggest challenges us to think within and beyond medicalisation to wider processes of biomedicalisation and the biopolitics of our body clocks: a vital new strand of chronopolitics today indeed which implicates us all in sickness and in health as the very embodiment of these rhythms of life itself. The paper concludes with a call for further research on these complex unfolding relations between chronobiology, health and society in these desynchronised times of ours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws attention to the health‐related work that disabled people do when engaging with rehabilitation services. Medical sociology has a rich history of looking at the 'illness work' that patients do, while disability studies scholars have explored the cultural value placed upon paid work and the effects on social status of being unable to work. Yet, a longstanding froideur between these two disciplines, which have fundamentally opposed ontologies of illness and disability, means that neither discipline has attended closely to the rehabilitation‐related work that disabled people do. The concept of 'adjusting' to illness highlights seemingly irreconcilable disciplinary differences. Yet this article argues that the notion of 'adjustment work' can elucidate the socio‐political character of the work disabled people do in their rehabilitation, which could create a more substantial and sustainable dialogue on this subject between disability studies and medical sociology. To make this case, we discuss interview data from the Rights‐based Rehabilitation project, which sought to explore disabled people's lived experiences of rehabilitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's 2009 health care reform agenda has been referred to as one of the most ambitious health policy programmes in modern history. Significant investment has combined with new structures, incentives, and regulations that have aimed to improve access, as well as gain greater control over a health care market much criticised for putting profit before patients. A range of health services research has been undertaken to analyse these efforts. Sociological perspectives have also been documented yet up to now a review and synthesis combining these various contributions has not been undertaken. By drawing on the lens of McDonaldization, the paper presents a narrative review that analyses the extent to which China's 2009 reform agenda has increased efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control over service provision. The review identifies elements of McDonaldization within China's 2009 reform agenda, however, notable gaps remain. In response to the limits of McDonaldization as a lens for understanding China's health care reform, the paper calls for alternative perspectives that are better able to understand the sociocultural dynamics shaping service provision, as well as an interdisciplinary research agenda that is able to generate new insights and understanding regarding health care in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do wage‐setting institutions, such as collective bargaining, improve health and, if so, is this because they reduce income inequality? Wage‐setting institutions are often assumed to improve health because they increase earnings and reduce inequality and yet, while individual‐level studies suggest higher earnings improve well being, the direct effects of these institutions on mortality remains unclear. This paper explores both the relationship between wage‐setting institutions and mortality rates whether income inequality mediates this relationship. Using 50 years of data from 22 high‐income countries (n ~ 825), I find mortality rates are lower in countries with collective bargaining compared to places with little or no wage protection. While wage‐setting institutions may reduce economic inequality, these institutions do not appear to improve health because they reduce inequality. Instead, collective bargaining improves health, in part, because they increase average wage growth. The political and economic drivers of inequality may not, then, be correlated with health outcomes, and, as a result, health scholars need to develop more nuanced theories of the political economy of health that are separate from but in dialogue with the political economy of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a narrative review of the use of collective terminology in relation to race and health in Britain, with particular reference to the 'Black African' community. 'Black Africans' have been categorised in the 1991–2011 censuses with added free‐text in 2021 in response to user demand. However, the UK government is increasingly reporting data for the 'Black' pan‐ethnicity, especially in the even more generalised 'BAME' ('Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic') acronym in COVID‐19 pandemic reports. The consequences of this practice are addressed. Firstly, with respect to ethical challenges, Black Africans find their conscription by government into the term BAME offensive and do not accept it as a self‐descriptor. This labelling, which subsumes Black Africans' self‐assigned ethnicity in the census, and consequent misrecognition may be interpreted as a micro‐aggression (a term coined in the 1970s but used here to denote microinvalidation), as suggested in the current black activism of the 'Black Lives Matter movement'. Secondly, ONS has warned that concealed heterogeneity renders the pan‐ethnicities unreliably crude, making them scientifically inaccurate. Analysts are recommended to present ethnic group data for the full census classification where possible for reasons of validity and respect for the patient as arbiter of their ethnic group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The substantial literature in political economy and sociology has shown that the increasing importance of financial activities (financialisation) exhibits significant effects on many socioeconomic conditions. While these conditions are relevant to public health, the dominant focus of the literature has been centred on the impact of financial markets on health services and health‐care systems. This paper analyses how the financialisation of non‐financial corporations, real estate and pensions can worsen public health through the transformation of workplace and living conditions as well as financially dependent social groups' perception of health risk. Our analysis raises several questions which aim to provide the basis of a future research agenda on the effects of financialisation on public and global health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper investigates the association between the Great Recession and educational inequalities in self‐rated general health in 25 European countries. We investigate four different indicators related to economic recession: GDP; unemployment; austerity and a ‘crisis’ indicator signifying severe simultaneous drops in GDP and welfare generosity. We also assess the extent to which health inequality changes can be attributed to changes in the economic conditions and social capital in the European populations. The paper uses data from the European Social Survey (2002–2014). The analyses include both cross‐sectional and lagged associations using multilevel linear regression models with country fixed effects. This approach allows us to identify health inequality changes net of all time‐invariant differences between countries. GDP drops and increasing unemployment were associated with decreasing health inequalities. Austerity, however, was related to increasing health inequalities, an association that grew stronger with time. The strongest increase in health inequality was found for the more robust ‘crisis’ indicator. Changes in trust, social relationships and in the experience of economic hardship of the populations accounted for much of the increase in health inequality. The paper concludes that social policy has an important role in the development of health inequalities, particularly during times of economic crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The materialist thread within health sociology has observed a clear gradient linking inequalities in health with measures of social class and poverty. More recently, Bourdieu's approach to social class complemented the 'economic capital' of Marxist analysis with 'symbolic' capitals such as 'social' and 'cultural'. However, efforts to assess how symbolic capital interacts with health disparities reveal complex or contradictory effects. In this paper, we re‐materialise the study of health and social position via a new materialist focus on the interactions between humans and non‐human matter (NHM). We analyse empirical data to disclose the range of human/NHM interactions in daily life, and how these affect people's health status. These interactions establish physical, psychological and social opportunities and constraints on what human bodies can do, contributing to relative advantages and disadvantages. We argue for a revised materialist understanding of sociomaterial position as constituted by a 'thousand tiny dis/advantages', and suggest that health and wellbeing are inextricably linked to dis/advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on Bourdieu's theory of economic, social and cultural capital to understand the relative effect of the volume and the composition of these capitals on healthcare service use in later life. Based on data from the fifth wave of the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (n = 64,840), we first look at the contribution of each capital in the use of three healthcare services (general practitioner, dentist and hospital). Using cluster analysis, we then mobilise Bourdieu's concept of habitus to explain how the unequal distribution of material and non‐material capitals acquired in childhood lead to different levels of health and hospital care utilisation in later life. After controlling for demographic and health insurance variables, our results show that economic capital has the strongest individual association among the three capitals. However, the results of a cluster analysis used to distinguish between capital structures show that those with high non‐material capital and low material capital have higher levels of primary healthcare utilisation, and in turn lower levels of hospital use. Bourdieu's approach sheds light on the importance of capitals in all forms and structures to understand the class‐related mechanisms that contribute to different levels of healthcare use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses a socio‐material approach, social practice theory, to provide new insights into the self‐management of chronic illness. It demonstrates how this theory can bridge arguments about the respective roles of social and individual influences, and how it can foreground an oft‐overlooked aspect of the issue – the demands of self‐care technologies and consequences for participation in social life. Drawing on interviews and focus groups with 25 young type‐1 diabetes outpatients in London, UK, the study points to the conflicts that occur when disease management technologies compete for time and space with the social practices of everyday life, and when self‐care tasks threaten to interrupt the flow of social life and make people feel 'left behind'. The paper concludes that young people are disabled by the contingent position of self‐care activities in daily life, which oblige them to compromise either their physical health or their immersion in the social world. This disabling effect would be mitigated if social practices were reorganised to make them more amenable to the time‐space requirements of disease management. A social practice theory lens can help throw light onto this issue and make a valuable contribution to the study of the self‐management of chronic illness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This ethnography within ten English and Welsh hospitals explores the significance of boundary work and the impacts of this work on the quality of care experienced by heart attack patients who have suspected non‐ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) /non‐ST elevation acute coronary syndrome. Beginning with the initial identification and prioritisation of patients, boundary work informed negotiations over responsibility for patients, their transfer and admission to different wards, and their access to specific domains in order to receive diagnostic tests and treatment. In order to navigate boundaries successfully and for their clinical needs to be more easily recognised by staff, a patient needed to become a stable boundary object. Ongoing uncertainty in fixing their clinical classification, was a key reason why many NSTEMI patients faltered as boundary objects. Viewing NSTEMI patients as boundary objects helps to articulate the critical and ongoing process of classification and categorisation in the creation and maintenance of boundary objects. We show the essential, but hidden, role of boundary actors in making and re‐making patients into boundary objects. Physical location was critical and the parallel processes of exclusion and restriction of boundary object status can lead to marginalisation of some patients and inequalities of care (A virtual abstract of this paper can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_979cmCmR9rLrKuD7z0ycA). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Persistent health inequalities pose a continued research and policy challenge in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Current approaches to health research and promotion are predicated on a distinction between wider, social structural causes and individual, health‐related behaviours often conceived of as lifestyle choices. Drawing on Bourdieu's theory of social practice, this paper develops an integrated perspective by observing associations between health and structured lifestyle practices. Using the UK Understanding Society household survey, a taxonomy of eight lifestyle clusters is identified, which exhibit significant health inequalities on a number of indicators. But the plurality of practices and subjective orientations inherent in the taxonomy reveals a finer, more complex differentiation of the social gradient in health. In addition, lifestyle appears to at least in parts mediate the relationship between social, material conditions and health. A feature of the taxonomy is that it admits a relational and contextual apprehension of health‐relevant, behavioural aspects within a more holistic notion of lifestyles. Based on this view, strategic approaches can be developed that respond to group‐specific situations and pathways and their varying roots in upstream or downstream domains of policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates inequalities in children's reported morbidity by parental social class compared with indicators of material disadvantage, using data for children aged 0 to 16 years from the British General Household Surveys for 199 1-94. Family structure, employment status and receipt of benefit are more closely associated with differentials in health for children than parental social class. Children in lone parent families living on Income Support are most likely to report chronic illness, whereas for children living with two parents the unemployment of the family head is most clearly associated with reported morbidity. These health inequalities are more pronounced in children under 10 years than children aged 10-6 years. Children living in local authority housing were significantly more likely to report chronic illness. South Asian children were less likely to have a longstanding limiting illness compared to the white population. This research shows that the economic position of the family, and especially material deprivation, is more closely associated with children's health status than social class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence concerning the relations of migration to health status and health care utilization is inconclusive. This paper outlines the theoretical positions on these relations and reviews the empirical findings supporting varying positions. The paper also presents the findings of a survey of a probability sample of the U.S. population concerning these issues. The analysis is organized around comparisons among immigrants from other societies, internal migrants, and non-migrants on important dimensions of health status and the utilization of different types of health services. Comparisons were also made among first generation, second generation, and 'old stock.' Finally, immigrants were grouped by country and area of origin to assess the influence of cultural differences on health and the utilization of services. Attempts were made to control the influence of demographic characteristics while assessing the relations between migration and health status. The controlled analysis showed immigrants to enjoy better health conditions followed by migrants and then the non-migrants. Significant differences in physical performance were manifested among immigrants from varying areas of origin, and also among generations of nativity. Controlling for both demographic characteristics and health status, immigrants were consistently the least utilizers of services and internal migrants the highest. An increase in utilization was associated with generational residence in the U.S. First generation were least utilizers, followed by second generation with the 'old stock' being the greatest utilizers. Immigrants from different countries and regions of the world also exhibited significant differences in the patterns of utilization of health services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dominant trend in smoking prevalence in most Western countries is its increasing association with lower socioeconomic positions, making it a major factor behind inequalities in health. This paper focuses on the reasoning behind smoking, as well as on its social significance among middle-class and working-class smokers. The data consist of 55 semi-structured interviews with daily smokers, ex-smokers and occasional smokers from different occupational backgrounds. The analysis revealed considerable differences in the ways of accounting for smoking, relating to the respondents' occupational backgrounds. Contrary to expectations, non-manual workers tended to consider their smoking functional, pleasurable and controlled, whereas the opposite was the case with the manual workers. Despite the high prevalence of smoking in that group, they were least willing to justify or rationalise their behaviour, whereas the agenda of middle-class smokers could be interpreted as the reconciliation of middle-class habitus with a risky, working-class habit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The renewed interest in ‘public sociology’ has sparked debate and discussion about forms of sociological work and their relationship to the State and civil society. Medical sociologists are accustomed to engaging with a range of publics and audiences inside and outside universities and are in a position to make an informed contribution to this debate. This paper describes how some of the debates about sociological work are played out through a ‘health impact assessment’ of a proposed housing renewal in a former coal mining community. We explore the dynamics of the health impact assessment process and relate it to wider debates, current in the social sciences, on the ‘new knowledge spaces’ within which contentious public issues are now being discussed, and the nature of different forms of expertise. The role of the ‘public sociologist’ in mediating the relationships between the accounts and interpretations of lay participants and the published ‘evidence’ is described as a process of mutual learning between publics, professionals and social scientists. It is argued that the continued existence and development of any meaningful ‘professional sociology’ requires an openness to a ‘public sociology’ which recognises and responds to new spaces of knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the development of health-related Quality of Life instruments over the last half century. It identifies the emergence of key components of quality of life measurement in other health status questionnaires between about 1950 and 1980 and their formalisation in Quality of Life instruments in the mid 1980s. The common developmental thread that linked these Quality of Life instruments and their precursors was the identification of ‘distal symptoms’ that represented the impact of illness beyond its immediate bodily manifestations. The measurement of distal symptoms through Quality of Life instruments also served to detach symptoms from their customary patho-physiological referent. Other contemporary examples of these free-floating symptoms reinforce the argument that the nature and meaning of symptoms has been transformed over recent decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, research concerned with the relationship between paid employment and women's experience of ill-health has focused on one or other of two competing explanatory models: the role enhancement model which postulates a positive health effect of paid employment and the role overload model which postulates a negative effect. Though a synthesis of these two models is becoming apparent in the literature (Arber 1990, 1991) a number of important issues remain neglected. This paper focuses on three of these neglected issues: the extent to which the relationship between employment and health is mediated by the nature and/or extent of the workload associated with both formal and domestic work; whether the relationship differs for different types of ill-health; and the role of health related selection into different social roles. Using data from the Health and Lifestyles survey, an innovative approach is taken to the measurement of domestic conditions, and separate measures of long-term health status, and of short-term physical and psychological health state are used. Proportional odds models are used to assess the relationship between employment status, domestic conditions and type of employment (measured in terms of the socioeconomic group of a woman's own occupation) independent of underlying long-term health status. Our findings suggest that the presence of long-term illness is the single most powerful influence on present health state, but that this does not explain away the positive relationship between employment and women's health. They also suggest that this relationship is different for different types of ill health and is not the same for women in different types of occupation. In particular, our findings suggest that the association between paid work and better health is rather less apparent for physical than psychological health, and in women working full time in professional or managerial occupations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines whether different ways of classifying women in the socioeconomic hierarchy make a difference with regard to health. Among sociologists there has been much dispute on how to classify women in the class structure. The insights from this debate, however, have attracted negligible attention in contemporary research on social inequalities in health. Four ways of classifying women are identified and operationalized: the conventional, the individual, the crossclass, and the pre-war generational approach. Using a nationwide representative data set, their associations with a dichotomous measure of self-reported health are investigated. Logistic regression analyses show that only one approach yields significant results (p<0.05): the conventional. In this model, health is inversely associated with socioeconomic status. Possible interpretations of these results are discussed. The findings imply that the conclusions drawn in Norwegian studies of social inequalities in health and in use of health services must be questioned and should be reconsidered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non‐standard forms of employment, such as self‐employment, are among the most prevalent routes for older people to access the workforce. While the financial benefits of any form of self‐employment in later life have been widely acknowledged, less is known about their impact on health. This study explores the association between self‐employment and 16 health outcomes among older people with different social stratification characteristics in Chile, a developing country experiencing rapid population ageing. We rely on a rich representative life history survey of Chilean men and women between the ages 65 and 75 years (N = 802) living in the capital Santiago, weighted sequence analysis to reconstruct employment histories and weighted regression analysis to measure the association between self‐employment and health in later life. All our analyses are adjusted by both individual lifetime health indicators and employment trajectories. Our results show that being self‐employed relative to not working is positively associated with health in seven out of 16 outcomes. More surprisingly, those in a self‐employment position seem to enjoy better health outcomes, particularly among the less educated and lower‐income levels. These stratified associations raise questions about how these individuals enjoy better health despite facing adverse social conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The level (or scale) at which social capital can be conceptualised and measured ranges potentially from the macro-level (regional or country level), to the meso-level (neighbourhoods, workplaces, schools), down to the individual level. However, one glaring gap in the conceptualisation of social capital within the empirical literature has been the level of the family. Our aim in this review is to examine the family as the 'missing level' in studies on social capital and health. To do so, we conducted a systematic review on the use and measurement of this notion in the health literature, with the final intention of articulating a direction for future research in the field. Our findings are consistent with the notion that family social capital is multidimensional and that its components have distinct effects on health outcomes. Further investigation is needed to understand the mechanisms through which family social capital is related to health, as well as determining the most valid ways to measure family social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health literature shows that unemployment has a gendered effect on health. However, whether men or women are more affected and why remains unclear. We assume that unemployment harms women less than men because of two mechanisms: social roles theories and health selection. First, the availability and centrality in individuals' lives of roles other than employment may reduce the detrimental effect of unemployment for women. Second, the gendered impact of unemployment on health results from the different ways selection mechanisms operate across genders. Moreover, these two mechanisms may operate differently in different contexts – for example, across different gender regimes. We investigate this by pursuing a three‐step comparative approach. The analysis relies on EU‐SILC data covering Italy and Sweden for 2004 to 2015 and SOEP data for Germany (1995–2017) and applies correlated dynamic random‐effects probit models. While we find weak support for the role of health selection in shaping the relations between unemployment, health, and gender, our empirical results are in line with the hypothesis of a larger gendered effect in older (vs younger) cohorts, western (vs eastern) Germany and Italy (vs. Sweden). Future empirical research needs to directly address the role of gender regimes in moderating such complex relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explored socioeconomic gradients in self‐rated overall health (SROH) using indicators of materialist (educational attainment and perceived income adequacy) and psychosocial perspectives (subjective social status (SSS)) among adults living in countries with varying levels of income inequality, and the importance of psychosocial stress in mediating these associations. If psychosocial processes at the individual and societal levels correspond, associations between SSS and SROH should be higher among adults in countries with higher income inequality, and psychosocial stress should be a more important mediator of these associations. We used multigroup structural equation models to analyse cross‐sectional data from the International Food Policy Study of adults (n = 22,824) in Australia, Canada, Mexico, the UK and the United States. Associations between SSS and SROH were not higher in more unequal countries, nor was psychosocial stress a more important mediator of these associations. Inequities in SROH in more unequal countries may not predominantly reflect stress‐related pathways of social status differentiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When conceptualising health and wellbeing among disabled people, the experience of internalised ableism must be considered. In this article, we argue that internalised ableism is indeed a health and wellbeing issue that materialises in numerous complex psychological, social and physical consequences. For theoretical grounding, we utilise critical disability studies, feminist theorising about solidarity and disability activists' concept of 'disability justice'. We draw on data from focus‐group interviews with disabled young people, comprising ten men and eleven women, with different impairment types. The focus‐group discussions revolve around various aspects of their wellbeing and participation in society, and possible and actual threats to the wellbeing of disabled children and young people in general. The analysis reflects various negative effects of internalised ableism on the identity, health and wellbeing of disabled young people. Family support, access to safer spaces and positive peer interactions are factors defining how internalised ableism develops, is maintained or defied. Peer support and solidarity are strong indicators of promoting healing from internalised ableism. We argue that disability scholars need to address the health and wellbeing of disabled people in an ableist world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The child protection system can be a highly consequential institution for mothers who are sex workers, yet scant attention has been paid to the health consequences of its policies on this population. Drawing on 31 in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews with 19 Indigenous and 12 non‐Indigenous sex workers in Vancouver, Canada, and using the stress process model and the concept of slow violence, this study proposes a typology of four trajectories through which child removal by this system shaped sex workers' health. Results suggest that child removal has health consequences beyond the conventionally thought of mechanism of mental distress and related health sequelae, to additionally alter women's social conditions, which also carried risks for health. Notably, while trajectories of Indigenous and non‐Indigenous sex workers were similar, Indigenous participants, whose families are disproportionately impacted by long‐standing colonial policies of child removal, were more severely jeopardized. Findings highlight how child removal can enact violence in the form of reverberating harms to sex workers' health, further reinforcing their marginalized statuses. This study calls for greater attention to how the child protection system (CPS) may influence the health of marginalized mothers, including how health inequities may be both causes and consequences of interventions by this system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists have made fundamental contributions to the study of race and health in the United States. They have disrupted biological assumptions of race, uncovered individual and structural factors that drive racial health disparities and explored the effects of racism on health. In recent years, however, with broader shifts towards big data, the work to understand the dynamics between race and health has been increasingly pursued from a quantitative perspective. Often, such analyses isolate intermediary mechanisms to further explain race as a cause of disease. While important, these approaches potentially limit our investigations of underlying assumptions about race and the complexity of this critical social construct. We argue that the resulting dearth of qualitative research on race and health substantially limits the knowledge being produced. After providing an overview of the overwhelming shift towards quantitative methods in the study of race and health, we present three areas of study that would benefit from greater qualitative inquiry as follows: (1) Healthy Immigrant Effect, (2) Maternal Health and (3) End‐of‐Life Care. We conclude with a call to the discipline to embrace the critical role of qualitative research in exploring the dynamics of race and health in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young adults are a high‐risk group for experiencing loneliness. We examine (1) the prevalence of loneliness among young adults in three ethnocultural groups in Israel: native Jews, former Soviet Union immigrants and Arabs; (2) the associations between loneliness and ethnicity, perceived poverty, physical and mental health, perceived discrimination, social capital and online social capital; (3) the distinct sensitivity of the three ethnocultural groups to the determinants of loneliness. Cross‐sectional representative data for individuals aged 20–34 were taken from the 2016 to 2017 Israeli Social Surveys (N = 4253). Hierarchical logistic models were estimated to predict loneliness. Differences in the prevalence of loneliness were observed among the groups, with immigrants at higher risk. We found both common and distinct risk factors among the groups and only little evidence for moderation. Ethnic differences in loneliness between the native Jews and the Arabs can be ascribed to differences in their demographic characteristics and the prevalence of other risk factors. The risk for loneliness remained higher for immigrants after controlling for the entire set of risk factors. Eliminating the possibility that immigrants are more sensitive to any risk factor considered suggests the effect of ethnicity per se or rather that other factors affect loneliness in young immigrant adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevalence of obesity and related health problems has increased sharply in recent decades. Dominant medical, economic, psychological, and especially epidemiological accounts conceptualise these trends as outcomes of individuals' lifestyles – whether freely chosen or determined by an array of obesogenic factors. As such, they rest on forms of methodological individualism, causal narratives, and a logic of substitution in which people are encouraged to set currently unhealthy ways of life aside. This article takes a different approach, viewing trends in obesity as consequences of the dynamic organisation of social practices across space and time. By combining theories of practice with emerging accounts of epigenetics, we explain how changing constellations of practices leave their marks on the body. We extend the concept of biohabitus to show how differences in health, well‐being, and body shape are passed on as relations between practices are reproduced and transformed over time. In the final section, we take stock of the practical implications of these ideas and conclude by making the case for extended forms of enquiry and policy intervention that put the organisation of practices front and centre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disembarking from a traditional approach of narrow hazardous environmental and structural conditions in understanding urban slums' health problems and moving towards a new notion of what constitutes health for slum dwellers will open a new avenue to recognise whether and how health is being prioritised in disadvantaged settings. Drawing on in‐depth semi‐structured interviews with a total of 67 men and 68 women from Kolkata slums and 62 men and 48 women from Bangalore slums, this study explored how knowledge, social realities, material and symbolic drivers of a place interweave in shaping slum‐dwellers' patterned way of understanding health, and the ways health and illnesses are managed. The current study adds to the growing evidence that ordinary members of the urban slums can articulate critical linkages between their everyday sociocultural realities and health conditions, which can support the design and delivery of interventions to promote wellbeing. The concept of health is not confined to an abstract idea but manifested in slum‐dwellers' sporadic practices of preventive and curative care as well as everyday living arrangements, where a complex arrangement of physical, psychological, financial, sociocultural and environmental dimensions condition their body and wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bariatric (weight loss) surgery modifies the digestive system, which produces impairments and symptoms which might be considered illness or disability. Bariatric patients, however, do not view themselves as ill or disabled, but healthier than before surgery. For this study, 35 bariatric patients – from a clinic located in the Midwestern United States – were interviewed to investigate how moral and medical discourses surrounding obesity impact how patients experience their bodies after bariatric surgery. While previous literature on bariatric patients has explored discourses of medicine, stigma and discipline, fewer have analysed how patients interpret physiological symptoms. Patients often reduce or discontinue medications for chronic illness after bariatric surgery, then replace them with a strict regimen of dietary supplements. Even though these supplements are taken to manage an impaired digestive system, they do not carry the same moral weight as medications for chronic illness. Patients also experience painful and humiliating symptoms after bariatric surgery. Bariatric patients interpret symptoms not as illness, but as important disciplinary tools to lose weight. These findings have implications for the social construction and experience of illness and disability in the context of fat stigma, health morality and biomedicalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two streams of theory and practice on gender equity have begun to elide. The first is work conducted to change social norms, particularly using theory that emerged from studies in social psychology. The second is work done on gender norms, emerging historically from feminist scholars working to counter gender inequality. As these two streams of work intersect, conceptual clarity is needed to understand differences and similarities between these two traditions. Increased clarity will improve efforts to address harmful norms and practices. In this article, we review similarities and differences between social and gender norms, reviewing the history of the concepts and identifying key tension points of contrast. We identified six areas of comparison that might be helpful for practitioners working for the promotion of global health as they make sense of social and gender norms. We then offer a definition of gender norms for practitioners and researchers working at the intersection between these two theories. Our definition draws from the two different streams of thought of how norms influence people's actions, acknowledging the double nature of gender norms: beliefs nested in people's minds and embedded in institutions that profoundly affect health‐related behaviours and shape differential access to health services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informed by a discourse analysis, this article examines the framing of equity within the UK's digital health policies between 2010 and 2017, focusing on England's development of NHS Digital and its situation within the UK Government's wider digital strategy. Analysis of significant policy documents reveals three interrelated discourses that are engaged within England's digital health policies: equity as a neoliberal imaginary of digital efficiency and empowerment; digital health as a pathway towards democratising health care through data‐sharing, co‐creation and collaboration; and finally, digital health as a route towards extending citizen autonomy through their access to data systems. It advances knowledge of the relationship between digital health policy and health inequalities. Revealing that while inclusion remains a priority area for policymakers, equity is being constituted in ways that reflect broader discourses of neoliberalism, empowerment and the turn to the market for technological solutionism, which may potentially exacerbate health inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses news and information related to the international journal "Sociology of Health & Illness" as of June 2018. Topics covered include its goal for the public benefit to promote and improve social scientific research, education, and scholarship in the field of the sociology of health and illness, the main responsibilities of Editorial Board members, and recruitment of board members within all areas of sociology.

An introduction for the periodical "Sociology of Health and Illness" is presented in which author discusses articles within this issue including antimicrobial resistance; sociological work; and secondary health care.

This article examines the association between healthcare use and receipt of social assistance. It focuses on asking to what extent the use of healthcare (seen as a proxy for health status) leads to social assistance. This is answered by describing the use of healthcare services among a cohort of Finnish social assistance clients before, during and after the first receipt of benefit by means of fixed-effects logistic regression. Using register data, the study follows a group of social assistance recipients from 2005 to 2011 and compares their use of healthcare to those not claiming social assistance during this same period and analyses how their use of health services develops over time. The results show that recipients use public healthcare clearly more than non-recipients, but they do so already prior to the first social assistance receipt. This partly confirms the social selection hypothesis according to which health problems lead to low income. However, the results do not exclude the existence of social causation. The causality is most likely bi-directional. The findings of the descriptive analyses are corroborated by a fixed-effects logistic regression analysis: the use of healthcare services increases the probability of receiving social assistance in the following month. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies indicate that the increasing educational level in many post-industrial nations may imply that subgroups of the population work in occupations for which they are overeducated. We aimed to investigate whether overeducation is associated with future self-rated health and psychological distress. The analytical sample consisted of 21,159 participants from the Stockholm Public Health Cohort. Individuals with upper secondary or university education, who in 2006 or 2007 had occupations requiring less education, were considered overeducated. The outcomes were self-rated health ( SRH) and psychological distress in 2010. Overeducated women had an increased risk of less than good SRH, compared to university-educated women in matching occupations (adjusted odds ratios ( OR): 2.44 confidence intervals ( CI): 1.32-4.51 for overeducated women with secondary school education), but not compared to less educated women in the same occupational class (adjusted OR: 0.87 CI:0.32-2.38 for overeducated women with secondary school education). We found no increased risk of less than good SRH for overeducated men, and no association between overeducation and psychological distress for either sex. The results indicate that overeducation is not per se associated with onset of less than good SRH or psychological distress in a short-term perspective, and the findings support education expansion as a means of improving public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we ask whether the level of sickness benefit provision protects the health of employees, particularly those who are most exposed to hazardous working conditions or who have a little education. The study uses the European Working Condition Survey that includes information on 20,626 individuals from 28 countries. Health was measured by self-reported mental wellbeing and self-rated general health. Country-level sickness benefit provision was constructed using spending data from Eurostat. Group-specific associations were fitted using cross-level interaction terms between sickness benefit provision and physical and psychosocial working conditions respectively, as well as those with little education. The mental wellbeing of employees exposed to psychosocial job strain and physical hazards, or who had little education, was better in countries that offer more generous sickness benefit. These results were found in both men and women and were robust to the inclusion of GDP and country fixed effects. In the analyses of self-reported general health, few group-specific associations were found. This article concludes that generous sickness benefit provision may strengthen employee's resilience against mental health risks at work and risks associated with little education. Consequently, in countries with a generous provision of sickness benefit, social inequalities in mental health are smaller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students of the effects of life change events on health have asked for studies in which single, desirable, life events that are appropriate to the life stage of the population sampled are examined in relation to health status. We do this with a single event - romantic involvement - that moves through a number of phases. We found in our college student sample that adverse health reactions are more likely to occur among those who have never been in love or who have been in love more than three times; among those involved in a relationship of two to six months duration as opposed to a shorter or longer period; among those who have just broken up a relationship; among those who attribute the break-up mainly to the other person; and among those who, having broken up, have not found a new romantic interest, or have plunged deeply into a new relationship. Some of the results are moderated by interaction effects with sex of respondent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]