Sociological Explanations for Health Inequalities in the UK

This essay delves into the sociological explanations for health inequalities within the United Kingdom, focusing on the impact of age and gender. It begins by outlining the concept of health inequalities, emphasizing the unjust disparities in health outcomes, and then introduces the National Health Service (NHS) and its role in addressing these issues. The essay examines the pre-NHS healthcare landscape and then highlights the inequalities in healthcare access before and after the NHS's establishment. The main body analyzes health inequalities related to age and gender, supported by statistical data and research findings, and evaluates the validity, reliability, and availability of this data. It explores factors such as age-related stigma, gender stereotypes, and socioeconomic status. The conclusion summarizes the key points, reiterating the significance of sociological factors in determining health outcomes and the need for continued efforts to reduce inequalities within the UK's healthcare system. The essay also acknowledges limitations such as data availability and accuracy. This essay provides a comprehensive understanding of the sociological factors that contribute to health inequalities within the UK, emphasizing the importance of addressing these disparities for a more equitable healthcare system.

Running head: HEALTHCARE
HEALTHCARE
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

HEALTHCARE 1
Essay title: Assess sociological explanations for differences in health chances and health and
social care provision.
Introduction
The inequalities in the health are some of the unavoidable and unjust factors of the
people’s differences in health across the population and among specific group of population. The
inequalities of health go against the principles related to social justice since they tend to be
unavoidable (Marmot 2015). Health inequalities are socially is determined by the circumstances
that are largely beyond any of the individual's control. In the context of the growing rate of the
health inequalities, NHS was developed on the aim that the good health care needs to be
available to all the population regardless of the social class and other societal factors. The
publicly funded health care system for England, the NHS is committed towards the provision of
improvement of the environments of the staffs and the patients. The organization targets to
provides benefits for the welfare of the staff and the patients with the inclusion of the health
education and support to the staff members by training. The essay aims to highlight the
inequalities in health within the domain of age and gender in the United Kingdom.
Main Body
The National health system of England was developed on July 5 in the year 1948. Before
the development of the NHS, there was a thoroughly unequal system regarding the healthcare
that was given to the patients. There were municipal and voluntary hospitals which were run by
the local authorities backing up with the historic inadequate law legislation. According to
Douglas et al. (2016), the era before the development of the NHS showed extreme inequalities
regarding access to health care services. Treatments were performed by the nurses and the

2HEALTHCARE
doctors who were limitedly trained with the non-sufficient amount of resources. In the context of
health inequality, the existence of the poor law and the legislation back then offered some of the
financial aid to the poorest of the families. There laid a wide gap among the health care facilities
for as per the social class since equitable health care facilities were provided to those who
offered money for the assistance.
For combating to the inequality in the health care services within the UK, the government
of the country initiated in the development of the national organization, NHS in the year 1948.
The organization offered the opportunity towards the healthy living of the people by the
reduction in the inequalities in health (Balicer et al. 2015). The organization provided the health
care services as per being accountable towards the communities, the public and the patients that
it serves. The birth of NHS remarked the history towards the provision of the universal and the
free benefits towards all the individuals in need. Funded by the taxes, the national governing
organization was useful for providing the citizens of the UK towards their needs regarding
healthcare rather than their capability towards payment (Arcaya et al. 2015). The general
summary of the effects of the formation of NHS include their responsibilities towards the
citizens of UK, which are the active development of the plans of the healthcare for the
improvement of the health-related services, making sure that the local health services are of high
quality and the effective integration of the national priorities like the improvement of the services
related to cancer within the local health service plans.
This essay will highlight two of the most major health care inequalities in the UK. These
are the inequalities in terms of Age and Gender. The distribution of health is being determined
by various of the variety of the community, the individual and the social factors.

3HEALTHCARE
Figure -
Source - GOV.UK. (2019)
As per the above figure, there has been a growing body of the shreds of evidence that
documents the full range of the inequalities within the distribution of the health and the health-
related outcomes. According to the researches, there have been various levels of the documented
disparities by the social class, gender and some of the other factors like ethnicity.
According to Lynch (2017), the outcomes of the health generally worsened with the
wider range of the socio-economic disadvantages. With the introduction by the government of
Britain towards the questions regarding occupation and the age in the case of the decennial
census, there has been a wide range of the disparity regarding the examination of the individuals
and their health outcomes in respect to their age and the social class.

4HEALTHCARE
Age
The problem regarding the health inequalities in the area of age as per the statistics of UK
includes multiple factors. It has been found by the reports that the older population confronts
multiple range of barriers towards accessing of the quality of the health care as compared to the
young population. Furthermore the treatment of the illness for the older population is not same as
compared to the younger population. The challenges in line with the health inequalities includes
affordability in older age, age related stigma, negative attitudes and preconceived notions.
According to the statistics, health inequalities in the category of age lies since older people are
often being overlooked due to the lack of knowledge of the medical professionals, care rationing
and believed to be too old for treatments.
Figure - Expected mortality rate by age and social class
Source - Ons.gov.uk. (2019)

5HEALTHCARE
The figure above highlights the burden of the ill health carried out by older people. In the
context of the UK, over 80% of all the deaths in the UK and Wales occurs to the people who are
aged above 65 including 69.35% among them belonging to the social class targeting most
deprived (Wickham et al. 2016). According to the health survey of England and as per the
reports by the Office of national statistics, the retirement plan survey of the country shredded
light over the health inequalities. The report indicated how there exist health inequalities among
the population aged above 65 years followed by the basis of their social class, income and the
other material deprivations. The measures of these factors, together with the current social,
economic conditions, along with the psychosocial resources, targets the lousy health care
outcomes among the elderly group in the UK. The data gathered can be evaluated by the factors
of the validity, reliability and the availability since these are published on the Office of the
national statistics and also national publication of England (Donkin et al. 2018).
Gender
Gender plays a vital role in the mortality rate in the UK. The challenges from the area of
gender towards health inequalities in UK has got multiple dimensions. According to the reports
there lies stark and clear inequalities among the health care among the two genders. This are
related to the socio economic status, ethnicity and the origin. Throughout the several stages of
the lives of women there lies various factors of social and economic origin that drives the health
and the related health care inequalities. The problem from the area of gender targeting the health
care inequities is mainly due to gender stereotypes, less valuing female gender and
discriminating the female gender towards their inalienable right to life.

6HEALTHCARE
As per the reports by GOV.UK. (2019) there lies a high illness rate among women as per
the different health outcome variables highlighting the gender differences.
Figure – Access to healthcare inequalities by gender
Source - Ons.gov.uk. (2019)
As per the picture above, women in the UK has been one of the most deprived and
marginalized population. Till the decade, the gap among the life expectancy rate of the men and
the female has not reduced (Grundy and Holt 2001). In the context of health care and the proper
and the equal access towards the health services and the hospital services, men have always been
on the upper hand regarding the facilities and the provisions.

7HEALTHCARE
Figure - Life expectancy by gender in the UK
Source - Un.org. (2019)
The figure above furthermore classifies the lowest life expectancy among the most
deprived areas in the UK, among which the majority is the female population. The social barrier
of the gender towards the wellbeing of life and the health care facilities by the female population
has been going through decades (Tunstall et al. 2015). Though the gap has reduced. More
measures and the identification and challenge of the social determinants towards healthy living is
mandatory in the UK.
Conclusion

8HEALTHCARE
Thus it can be concluded from the above essay that Health inequalities are socially being
determined by the circumstances that are largely beyond any of the individual’s control. Before
the development of the NHS, there was a thoroughly unequal system regarding the healthcare
that was given to the patients. For combating to the inequality in the health care services within
the UK, the government of the country initiated in the development of the national organization,
NHS in the year 1948. The essay highlighted on two of the significant factors of the health care
inequalities, which are the age and the gender which are targeting the mortality rate in the UK.
With reference to the data from the Office of the national statistics, the essay highlighted the
current challenges together with the way towards the reduction of the inequality gap of the health
care system in the UK for a better living.
Limitations
The limitations of the study include the lack of the availability of the data from the
relevant sources. Furthermore, data that has been gathered for the interpretations of the factors of
the inequality might not be entirely accurate due to the lack of the proper level of authenticity
and the webpage information regarding the rate or the status of difference with gender and age
towards health care facilities. Besides these, data related to the diseases and the quality of care
related to age and the discrimination of the nursing care and the health care charges varying as
per period has not been found.
Summary
Throughout the essay, the main topic that has been highlighted is the increasing rate of
healthcare inequalities in the context of the UK. With the regard of the health care regimes, the
essay stated the life before the formation of the national approach, the NHS. The article

9HEALTHCARE
portrayed the significant health inequalities and the results of the weak legislation within the
country before the government of the UK together with the international approaches initiated the
formation of NHS to on the aim that the excellent health care needs to be available to all the
population regardless of the social class and other societal factors and also towards the
commitment of the provision of improvement of the environments of the staffs and the patients.
The essay explained the issues of the age centred care and the low rate of the availability of the
health care services for the aged population backed by their social and the economic system in
UK. It furthermore highlighted the high mortality rates among the female population, specifically
to the class who are most deprived.
The identified inequalities within the health care factors in the UK are the factors of
gender and age. There lie several of the sociological explanations for the continued range of the
inequalities related to the health care facilities. For the fact of the gender, the stereotypes towards
the women gender and social discrimination towards women are one of the primary sociological
explanations towards health care inequality (Un.org. 2019). In terms of age, lack of employment,
limited resource and income followed by the social class are some of the significant factors
towards inequality in health care (Ons.gov.uk. 2019).
.

10HEALTHCARE
Reference
Arcaya, M.C., Arcaya, A.L. and Subramanian, S.V., 2015. Inequalities in health: definitions,
concepts, and theories. Global health action, 8(1), p.27106.
Balicer, R.D., Hoshen, M., Cohen‐Stavi, C., Shohat‐Spitzer, S., Kay, C., Bitterman, H.,
Lieberman, N., Jacobson, O. and Shadmi, E., 2015. Sustained Reduction in Health Disparities
Achieved through Targeted Quality Improvement: One‐Year Follow‐up on a Three‐Year
Intervention. Health services research, 50(6), p.1891.
Donkin, A., Goldblatt, P., Allen, J., Nathanson, V. and Marmot, M., 2018. Global action on the
social determinants of health. BMJ global health, 3(Suppl 1), p.e000603.
Douglas, E., Waller, J., Duffy, S.W. and Wardle, J., 2016. Socio-economic inequalities in breast
and cervical screening coverage in England: are we closing the gap?. Journal of medical
screening, 23(2), pp.98-103.
GOV.UK. (2019). Chapter 5: inequality in health. [online] Available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-profile-for-england/chapter-5-inequality-in-
health [Accessed 18 May 2019].
Grundy, E. and Holt, G., 2001. Health inequalities in the older population. Health variations: the
official newsletter of the ESRC Health Variations Programme (7), pp.4-5.
Lynch, J., 2017. Reframing inequality? The health inequalities turn as a dangerous frame
shift. Journal of Public Health, 39(4), pp.653-660.
Marmot, M., 2015. The health gap: the challenge of an unequal world. The Lancet, 386(10011),
pp.2442-2444.

11HEALTHCARE
Ons.gov.uk. (2019). Health inequalities - Office for National Statistics. [online] Available at:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthinequalities
[Accessed 18 May 2019].
Tunstall, H., Shortt, N.K., Pearce, J.R. and Mitchell, R.J., 2015. Difficult life events, selective
migration and spatial inequalities in mental health in the UK. PloS one, 10(5), p.e0126567.
Un.org. (2019). Health Inequalities in Old Age. [online] Available at:
https://www.un.org/development/desa/ageing/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2018/04/Health-
Inequalities-in-Old-Age.pdf [Accessed 18 May 2019].
Wickham, S., Anwar, E., Barr, B., Law, C. and Taylor-Robinson, D., 2016. Poverty and child
health in the UK: using evidence for action. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 101(8), pp.759-
766.