IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v280y2021ics0277953621003695.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social prescribing and classed inequality: A journey of upward health mobility?

Author

Listed:
  • Gibson, Kate
  • Pollard, Tessa M.
  • Moffatt, Suzanne

Abstract

Social prescribing, characterised by a link worker connecting patients with local groups and services, is currently being widely implemented in the UK. Taking clients' experiences of a social prescribing intervention in the North of England between November 2019 and July 2020 as its focus, this paper employs ethnographic methods to explore the complex social contexts in which social prescribing is delivered. Building on Bourdieusian approaches to class, we concentrate on four case studies to offer a theoretically-grounded analysis which attends to the relationship between everyday contexts and the classed processes by which health capital may be accrued. By following clients' experiences and trajectories through shifting positions across time - often entailing moments of tension and disjuncture - we explore how processes of classed inequality relate to engagement in the social prescribing intervention. Our results show how structural contexts, and relatedly the possession of capital, shape clients' priorities to invest in the cultural health capital offered by the intervention. Importantly, while inequalities shaped participants’ capacity to engage with the intervention, all participants recognised the value of the health capital on offer. We conclude by arguing that inequalities cannot be tackled through focusing on the individual in the delivery of personalised care and therefore offer a counter narrative to socio-political assumptions that social prescribing reduces health inequalities. Crucially, we argue that such assumptions wrongly presuppose that people are homogenously disposed to engaging in their future health.

Suggested Citation

  • Gibson, Kate & Pollard, Tessa M. & Moffatt, Suzanne, 2021. "Social prescribing and classed inequality: A journey of upward health mobility?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 280(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:280:y:2021:i:c:s0277953621003695
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114037
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953621003695
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114037?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shiell, Alan & Hawe, Penelope & Kavanagh, Shane, 2020. "Evidence suggests a need to rethink social capital and social capital interventions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 257(C).
    2. Warin, Megan & Zivkovic, Tanya & Moore, Vivienne & Ward, Paul R. & Jones, Michelle, 2015. "Short horizons and obesity futures: Disjunctures between public health interventions and everyday temporalities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 309-315.
    3. Morris, Stephanie & Guell, Cornelia & Pollard, Tessa M., 2019. "Group walking as a “lifeline”: Understanding the place of outdoor walking groups in women's lives," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 238(C), pages 1-1.
    4. Mackenzie, Mhairi & Skivington, Kathryn & Fergie, Gillian, 2020. "“The state They're in”: Unpicking fantasy paradigms of health improvement interventions as tools for addressing health inequalities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 256(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Morris, Stephanie & Wildman, Josephine M. & Gibson, Kate & Moffatt, Suzanne & Pollard, Tessa M., 2022. "Managing disruption at a distance: Unequal experiences of people living with long-term conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 302(C).
    2. Wildman, John & Wildman, Josephine M., 2023. "Impact of a link worker social prescribing intervention on non-elective admitted patient care costs: A quasi-experimental study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 317(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Leddy, Anna M. & Whittle, Henry J. & Shieh, Jacqueline & Ramirez, Catalina & Ofotokun, Ighovwerha & Weiser, Sheri D., 2020. "Exploring the role of social capital in managing food insecurity among older women in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    2. Nichols, Carly E., 2021. "Spaces for women: Rethinking behavior change communication in the context of women's groups and nutrition-sensitive agriculture," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 285(C).
    3. Morris, Stephanie & Wildman, Josephine M. & Gibson, Kate & Moffatt, Suzanne & Pollard, Tessa M., 2022. "Managing disruption at a distance: Unequal experiences of people living with long-term conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 302(C).
    4. Pollard, Tessa M. & Guell, Cornelia & Morris, Stephanie, 2020. "Communal therapeutic mobility in group walking: A meta-ethnography," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 262(C).
    5. Bissell, Paul & Peacock, Marian & Blackburn, Joanna & Smith, Christine, 2016. "The discordant pleasures of everyday eating: Reflections on the social gradient in obesity under neo-liberalism," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 14-21.
    6. Katherine N. Irvine & Daniel Fisher & Melissa R. Marselle & Margaret Currie & Kathryn Colley & Sara L. Warber, 2022. "Social Isolation in Older Adults: A Qualitative Study on the Social Dimensions of Group Outdoor Health Walks," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-26, April.
    7. Simons, Ronald L. & Lei, Man-Kit & Klopack, Eric & Beach, Steven R.H. & Gibbons, Frederick X. & Philibert, Robert A., 2021. "The effects of social adversity, discrimination, and health risk behaviors on the accelerated aging of African Americans: Further support for the weathering hypothesis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).
    8. Călin Vâlsan & Zizi Goschin & Elena Druică, 2023. "The Measurement of Social Capital in America: A Reassessment," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 135-161, January.
    9. Anita Minh & Lisa Ritland & Simon Webb & Barry Forer & Marni Brownell & Eric Duku & Monique Gagné & Magdalena Janus & Nazeem Muhajarine & Martin Guhn, 2022. "Does social capital flatten the social gradient in early childhood development? An ecological study of two provinces in Canada," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 159(2), pages 549-568, January.
    10. Mulumeoderhwa Buhendwa & Yvonne Sliep & Gugu Gladness Mchunu & Celenkosini Thembelenkosini Nxumalo, 2022. "Exploring the Influence of Social Capital on HIV Prevention with Migrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Living in Durban, South Africa," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-19, December.
    11. Hei Gao & Zike Xu & Yu Chen & Yutian Lu & Jian Lin, 2022. "Walking Environment and Obesity: A Gender-Specific Association Study in Shanghai," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-16, February.
    12. Monica Bensberg & Andrew Joyce & Erin Wilson, 2021. "Building a Prevention System: Infrastructure to Strengthen Health Promotion Outcomes," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-18, February.
    13. Zivkovic, Tanya, 2018. "Forecasting and foreclosing futures: The temporal dissonance of advance care directives," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 16-22.
    14. Laurence, James & Kim, Harris Hyun-soo, 2021. "Individual and community social capital, mobility restrictions, and psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic: a multilevel analysis of a representative US survey," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 287(C).
    15. Jinxin Yang & Din Jong, 2021. "Understanding Continuance Intention Determinants to Adopt Online Health Care Community: An Empirical Study of Food Safety," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(12), pages 1-21, June.
    16. Farrell, Lucy C. & Warin, Megan J. & Moore, Vivienne M. & Street, Jackie M., 2016. "Socio-economic divergence in public opinions about preventive obesity regulations: Is the purpose to ‘make some things cheaper, more affordable’ or to ‘help them get over their own ignorance’?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 1-8.
    17. Ewa Jarosz, 2019. "Unequal Times: Social Structure, Temporal Perspective, and Time Allocation in Poland," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 1189-1206, February.
    18. Orna Baron-Epel & Roni Elran-Barak & Milka Donchin, 2022. "Social Capital as a Mediator and Moderator in the Association between Loneliness and Health, Israel as a Case Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(6), pages 1-16, March.
    19. Emily Tupper & Sarah Atkinson & Tessa M. Pollard, 2020. "Doing more with movement: constituting healthy publics in movement volunteering programmes," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 6(1), pages 1-11, December.

    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:280:y:2021:i:c:s0277953621003695. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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.