IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v34y1992i6p675-685.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The limits of lifestyle: Re-assessing 'fatalism' in the popular culture of illness prevention

Author

Listed:
  • Davison, Charlie
  • Frankel, Stephen
  • Smith, George Davey

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the development of preventive medicine in the field of Coronary Heart Disease. It is based on an in-depth, ethnographic investigation into the popular culture of prophylactic behaviour carried out in South Wales (U.K.) during 1988 and 1989. The focus of the data and analysis presented here is the operation of cultural norms and practices related to the understanding and explanation of the cause and distribution of illness and death from heart ailments. The paper illustrates how the everyday cultural practice of 'lay epidemiology' is involved in accounting for illness misfortune and in assessing the potential benefits of prophylactic behaviour change. A central issue dealt with here is the relationship of lifestyle to environment in the popular understanding of chronic disease. Lay notions of luck, fate, destiny, randomness and chaos in the distribution of heart disease are explored. In conclusion, some implications for health education in this field are put forward.

Suggested Citation

  • Davison, Charlie & Frankel, Stephen & Smith, George Davey, 1992. "The limits of lifestyle: Re-assessing 'fatalism' in the popular culture of illness prevention," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 675-685, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:34:y:1992:i:6:p:675-685
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(92)90195-V
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Waters, Erika A. & Ball, Linda & Gehlert, Sarah, 2017. "“I don’t believe it.” Acceptance and skepticism of genetic health information among African-American and White smokers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 153-160.
    2. Samantha Batchelor & Emma R. Miller & Belinda Lunnay & Sara Macdonald & Paul R. Ward, 2021. "Revisiting Candidacy: What Might It Offer Cancer Prevention?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(19), pages 1-14, September.
    3. Bell, Ann V. & Hetterly, Elizabeth, 2014. "“There's a higher power, but He gave us a free will”: Socioeconomic status and the intersection of agency and fatalism in infertility," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 66-72.
    4. Emslie, Carol & Hunt, Kate, 2008. "The weaker sex? Exploring lay understandings of gender differences in life expectancy: A qualitative study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(5), pages 808-816, September.
    5. Skolbekken, John-Arne & Østerlie, Wenche & Forsmo, Siri, 2008. "Brittle bones, pain and fractures - Lay constructions of osteoporosis among Norwegian women attending the Nord-Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT)," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(12), pages 2562-2572, June.
    6. Armstrong, Natalie & Murphy, Elizabeth, 2008. "Weaving meaning? An exploration of the interplay between lay and professional understandings of cervical cancer risk," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(7), pages 1074-1082, October.
    7. Amaechi D. Okonkwo, 2013. "Generational Perspectives of Unprotected Sex and Sustainable Behavior Change in Nigeria," SAGE Open, , vol. 3(1), pages 21582440124, January.
    8. Gavin Daker-White & Caroline Sanders & Anne Rogers & Ivaylo Vassliev & Christian Blickem & Sudeh Cheraghi-Sohi, 2014. "A Constellation of Misfortune," SAGE Open, , vol. 4(4), pages 21582440145, November.
    9. Goldsmith, Daena J. & Lindholm, Kristin A. & Bute, Jennifer J., 2006. "Dilemmas of talking about lifestyle changes among couples coping with a cardiac event," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(8), pages 2079-2090, October.
    10. Armaan A Rowther & Asiya K Kazi & Huma Nazir & Maria Atiq & Najia Atif & Nida Rauf & Abid Malik & Pamela J Surkan, 2020. "“A Woman Is a Puppet.” Women’s Disempowerment and Prenatal Anxiety in Pakistan: A Qualitative Study of Sources, Mitigators, and Coping Strategies for Anxiety in Pregnancy," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(14), pages 1-19, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:34:y:1992:i:6:p:675-685. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.