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The assets-based approach: furthering a neoliberal agenda or rediscovering the old public health? A critical examination of practitioner discourses.
- Source :
- Critical Public Health; Sep2017, Vol. 27 Issue 4, p455-464, 10p
- Publication Year :
- 2017
-
Abstract
- The ‘assets-based approach’ to health and well-being has, on the one hand, been presented as a potentially empowering means to address the social determinants of health while, on the other, been criticised for obscuring structural drivers of inequality and encouraging individualisation and marketisation; in essence, for being a tool of neoliberalism. This study looks at how this apparent contestation plays out in practice through a critical realist-inspired examination of practitioner discourses, specifically of those working within communities to address social vulnerabilities that we know impact upon health. The study finds that practitioners interact with the assets-based policy discourse in interesting ways. Rather than unwitting tools of neoliberalism, they considered their work to be about mitigating the worst effects of poverty and social vulnerability in ways that enhance collectivism and solidarity, concepts that neoliberalism arguably seeks to disrupt. Furthermore, rather than a different, innovative, way of working, they consider the assets-based approach to simply be a re-labelling of what they have been doing anyway, for as long as they can remember. So, for practitioners, rather than a ‘new’ approach to public health, the assets-based public health movement seems to be a return to recognising and appreciating the role of community within public health policy and practice; ideals that predate neoliberalism by quite some considerable time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Subjects :
- HEALTH & psychology
ASSETS (Accounting)
COMMUNITIES
FOCUS groups
HEALTH services accessibility
INTERVIEWING
RESEARCH methodology
HEALTH policy
POLICY sciences
PRACTICAL politics
PUBLIC health
RESEARCH funding
QUALITATIVE research
WELL-being
DATA analysis software
MEDICAL coding
HEALTH & social status
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 09581596
- Volume :
- 27
- Issue :
- 4
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Critical Public Health
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 123537470
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2016.1249826