Rural health inequalities have been relatively neglected in recent years. The data assembled for a large study of health and deprivation in the Northern Region of England have been reanalysed to ...examine three questions. How wide are rural health inequalities compared with those in urban areas? Is health intrinsically better in rural areas, given comparable deprivation or affluence? Is the association between health and wealth weaker in rural than in urban areas? It is shown that, although health inequalities are wider in urban areas, this corresponds to wider socioeconomic divisions: at equivalent levels of wealth, health measures are similar. This relationship breaks down, however, when the most remote rural areas are compared with matching localities in conurbations, for in this case rural areas have a clear advantage. We go on to show that the apparent weakness of the association between health and wealth in rural areas is largely an artefact; the association becomes stronger when the units of population (electoral wards) are enlarged to resemble more closely those in urban contexts. The comparability of rural and urban forms of deprivation is discussed in the light of these results.
New perspectives on siting controversy Owens, Susan; Petts, Judith; Short, Jr., James F. ...
Journal of risk research,
03/2004, Letnik:
7, Številka:
2
Journal Article
A study was conducted to identify relative and absolute changes in mortality in the northern region of England between 1981 and 1991. Results re-emphasize the need to link mortality patterns with ...material conditions.
To what extent is trust in governance procedures a precondition for public engagement? This work is based on ethnographic research that examined the relationship between regulators and residents in ...the major chemical and petrochemical centres of Grangemouth (Scotland) and Ludwigshafen (Germany). In Grangemouth a period of rising economic insecurity coupled with intensified public concern about safety has brought regulatory authorities and the town's population into ongoing dialogue. This dialogue has been uneasy, and marked by considerable public suspicion; but it has been a dialogue of sorts, nonetheless. In Ludwigshafen the prevailing mood has remained one of confidence in the town's massive chemical industry: the notion that a routine dialogue between regulators and residents might be either necessary or desirable has rarely been articulated by either side. Questioning the tendency in the literature on public engagement in environmental policy issues to associate such engagement with trust, we suggest that, in these two case studies at least, the opposite applied. It was manifest distrust and frustration which provoked animated public engagement with government and officials in Grangemouth recently. Equally, it was the depth of trust and familiarity, built up over decades, which facilitated public disengagement from issues of environmental regulation and governance in Ludwigshafen.
Studies of mortality in small areas have generally covered short periods of about 3 years. These snapshots highlight the extent of health inequalities, but do not allow assessment of local trends, ...fluctuations or unexpected variations in mortality. To overcome this limitation, mortality data spanning a 12-year period (1975-86) are presented here for two north-east towns. Despite comparably severe deprivation in both places, mortality under 65 in the poorest areas of Middlesbrough has remained consistently much higher than in equivalent areas of Sunderland. The implications of this persisting disparity are considered.
The Middlesbrough Locality Study refers to the fluctuations in environmental concern at various turning-points in the post-1945 development of the Tees basin, though public health implications are ...only touched on indirectly. In relation to health issues, this is the domain of 'lifestyle'. Analysis of the social distribution of health occupies a curious position in sociology - and even more so in social anthropology. But behind it lies a disparity in health - between working class Middlesbrough and working class Sunderland - which is anything but speculative. Analysis over the 12 years 1975-1986 confirms that death rates under the age of 65 have consistently been much greater in the selected areas of Middlesbrough than in Sunderland. Description of Middlesbrough or Sunderland generally starts with the industries which have shaped their landscapes and dominated their economies in the past 50 years and more: iron and steel and petro-chemicals on Teesside; coal-mining and shipbuilding on Wearside.
