Week 10: Youth, Health and Risk Sunday, 10 October 2021 4:35 pm Next 2 weeks of health: understanding the social patterning of health and crime in the lives of young people. Lecture overview: - Health and a social phenomenon: social model of health - Conceptualising health/wellbeing - Unsettling 'risk' approaches Key Domains of 'risk' or concern: - Substances - The body: body image and obesity - Sexuality - sexual health, teen pregnancy, HIV - Mental health The Social Model of Health - Focuses on the social determinants of health and illness, especially the economic and social conditions that influence the health of individuals, groups and communities - Health is seen as relating directly to peoples living and working conditions - Class position, occupation, gender, and race are all important factors in understanding inequalities in health Social Determinants of Health - WHO definition: "the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age" - These conditions are shaped by more than just ourselves (families and communities and distribution of money, power and resources at all levels) Different levels of health 'determinants' - Structural: global and national economic, political and social welfare systems and education systems - Proximal: cultural, religious, and community factors which establish individual differences generate health or ill health TL ~~~ local
- Inese leveis closely correspona to environmental spheres of influence affecting a young person, from family and peer group, to school, to neighbourhood and to wider society (Viner et al 2013) - Direct correlation between how equal a society is and how healthy a society it Wellbeing, health and risk in youth sociology - Young people's health is considered a key target of concern particularly regarding alcohol and substance abuse, mental health and obesity - Global overview: different risks based on country wealth/development (90% of young people live in "underdeveloped" countries) Youth and risk - 'At risk' discourses frame discussions of young people's health - At risk of: not 'transitioning' successfully from youth to adulthood - and things like delinquency, substance use and teen pregnancy - Young people not in education or training are a key concern for governments related to welfare costs - only 6.3% of 15-19yos receive payments Health and 'at risk' discourses - Health as an individual property - A sociological perspective sees that: social conditions create risks for young people AND social policies that regard these risks as characteristic of young people tend to exacerbate disadvantage Wellbeing as a relational approach - The term 'wellbeing', rather than 'health' denotes a focus on "the health status of individuals and societies as a social process" - The sociology of youth problematises how concepts of health and risk relate to young people - emphasises the social context. Individualisation and health - Shifts from collective ways of life have led to a context of individualisation, in which the 'state' has less control of responsibility for labour markets and employment - Individual young people and their families are shifted from individuale se ritizone to individuale se