Are stress-related pathways of social status differentiation more important determinants of health inequities in countries with higher levels of income inequality?

We explored socioeconomic gradients in self-rated overall health (SROH) using indicators of materialist (educational attainment and perceived income adequacy) and psychosocial perspectives (subjective social status (SSS)) among adults living in countries with varying levels of income inequality, and the importance of psychosocial stress in mediating these associations. If psychosocial processes at the individual and societal levels correspond, associations between SSS and SROH should be higher among adults in countries with higher income inequality, and psychosocial stress should be a more important mediator of these associations. We used multigroup structural equation models to analyse cross-sectional data from the International Food Policy Study of adults (n = 22,824) in Australia, Canada, Mexico, the UK and the United States. Associations between SSS and SROH were not higher in more unequal countries, nor was psychosocial stress a more important mediator of these associations. Inequities in SROH in more unequal countries may not predominantly reflect stress-related pathways of social status differentiation.

Barriers to Access: A Feminist Analysis of Medically Assisted Dying and the Experience of Marginalized Groups.

In this article, I argue that a holistic strategy is needed to ascertain how implicit bias, on the part of health-care providers, and structural impediments work together to produce significant barriers to access to medical assistance in dying for marginalized groups-particularly those experiencing intersecting or interlocking forms of identity-based oppressions. In doing so, I also make the case that this kind of primary, patient-centered, and institutional research could benefit from the insights of critical feminism and materialist feminist theory by highlighting and challenging inequalities, opening up debate, and exploring new forms of knowledge production. It also offers a way to shape future research of medical assistance in dying, as it relates specifically to the study of how overlapping forms of structural and interpersonal marginalization (e.g., implicit bias), inclusive of race, gender, class, ethnicity, dis/ability, sexuality, and so on are expressed and experienced.

A review of recent literature on materialist and psychosocial models for racial and ethnic disparities in birth outcomes in the US, 2000-2014.

OBJECTIVE: Material and psychosocial factors exacerbate racial disparities in health outcomes. This review sought to ascertain recent knowledge of the effects of materialist and psychosocial factors on differences in low birthweight (LBW) and preterm delivery (PTD) outcomes between Black and White mothers. DESIGN: Search and review was conducted for studies that examined: (a) neighborhood-level deprivation as an indicator of material conditions, and (b) racial discrimination or occupational stressors as indicators of psychosocial stress. The outcomes of interest were LBW and PTD. RESULTS: Material and psychosocial factors significantly and negatively affected Blacks more than Whites, and were associated with increased adverse outcomes. Of five studies with a homogeneous Black study sample, three reported no effect on outcomes in women exposed to material or psychosocial factors. CONCLUSION: Through this review we find that in comparison to White women, Black women are at higher risk of adverse outcomes due to both psychosocial stress and meso-level deprivation, after accounting for personal factors. A better understanding of effects on health outcomes of material and psychosocial factors in Black women is needed. Further investigation into materialist and psychosocial factors, will allow us to better understand the factors driving PTD and LBW disparities in the US.

Cohort change and the diffusion of environmental concern: A cross-national analysis.

This study explores value change across cohorts for a multinational population sample. Employing a diffusion-of-innovations approach, we combine competing theories predicting the relationship between socio-economic status (SES) and environmentalism: post-materialism and affluence theories, and global environmentalism theory. The diffusion argument suggests that high-SES groups first adopt pro-environmental views, but as time passes by, environmentalism diffuses to lower-SES groups. We test the diffusion argument using a sample of 18 countries for two waves (years 1993 and 2000) from the International Social Survey Project (ISSP). Cross-classified multilevel modeling allows us to identify a non-linear interaction between cohort and education, our core measure of SES, in predicting environmental concern, while controlling for age and period. We find support for the diffusion argument and demonstrate that the positive effect of education on environmental concern first increases among older cohorts, then starts to level off until a bend-point is reached for individuals born around 1940 and becomes progressively weaker for younger cohorts.

Stress-Related Poor Diet Quality Does Not Explain Socioeconomic Inequities in Health: A Structural Equation Mediation Analysis of Gender-Specific Pathways.

BACKGROUND: Psychosocial stress and diet quality individually mediate associations between socioeconomic position (SEP) and health; however, it is not known whether they jointly mediate these associations. This is an important question because stress-related unhealthy eating is often invoked as an explanation for diet-related health inequities, particularly among women, seemingly with no empirical justification. OBJECTIVE: This study examined whether psychosocial stress and diet quality jointly mediated associations between SEP and self-rated health in women and men. DESIGN: Multiple mediating pathways were modeled using data from the cross-sectional International Food Policy Study. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: Data were collected from 5,645 adults (aged 18 years or older) in Canada during 2018 and 2019. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Participants reported SEP using indicators of materialist (educational attainment and perceived income adequacy) and psychosocial pathways (subjective social status), along with psychosocial stress, dietary intake (to assess overall diet quality via Healthy Eating Index-2015 scores), and self-rated health. STATISTICAL ANALYSES PERFORMED: Structural equation modeling modeled pathways linking SEP (ie, educational attainment, perceived income adequacy, and subjective social status) with self-rated health mediated by psychosocial stress and diet quality, stratified by gender. RESULTS: There was no evidence that psychosocial stress and diet quality jointly mediated associations between SEP and self-rated health in women or men. Diet quality mediated associations between educational attainment and self-rated health in women and men, with some evidence that it mediated associations between subjective social status and self-rated health in men (P = 0.051). Psychosocial stress mediated associations between perceived income adequacy and self-rated health in women and men, and between subjective social status and self-rated health in women. CONCLUSIONS: Although often invoked as an explanation for diet-related health inequities, stress-related poor diet quality did not mediate associations between SEP and self-rated health in women or men. Psychosocial stress and diet quality individually mediated some of these associations, with some differences by gender.

Public health in the making: Dietary innovators and their on-the-job sociology.

Diet is understood to be one of the most important influences on public health and chronic disease, and is particularly implicated in the so-called 'obesity epidemic'. Yet interventions aiming to improve the population's dietary habits have failed to translate into widespread health improvements. Simultaneously, the knowledge landscape has become increasingly contentious, with fat activism challenging dominant approaches to how obesity is framed and addressed. This paper is based on 24 ethnographic interviews, and explores the work of health practitioners promoting therapeutic carbohydrate restriction ('low-carb' diets) for people with metabolic health conditions. Drawing on Michel Callon's study of technological innovation, I show practitioners engaging in 'on-the-job sociology'-situated sociological work to justify, and forge a space for, innovative dietary intervention. These innovators employ physiological explanations of hormones, satiety (or hunger), and pleasure (or shame), supported with personal experience, to emphasise material connections between particular eating habits and the sustainability of dietary improvement in everyday life. They resist fat activist influence on healthcare practice (that has resulted in practitioners avoiding conversations about diet, fatness and health), as well as the more extensively critiqued practices of health promotion. Deflecting blame/shame from individuals, innovators spotlight the role of the food industry in undermining public understandings of food and physiology, and dietary improvement that is achievable and sustainable. Through on-the-job sociology, innovators forge a space to engage patients in collaborative dietary experimentation and improvement. This study highlights the importance of on-the-job sociology in the contemporary knowledge landscape, providing new insights about public health in the making.

Understanding the nourishment of bodies at the centre of food and health systems - systemic, bodily and new materialist perspectives on nutritional inequity.

That nutritional inequalities continue to proliferate at a global level requires new insight from all disciplines, given their formation at the intersection of broader inequities in food, health and other systems. This paper argues that critical social scientific perspectives are needed to supplement public health and food focused approaches, which, while helpful, tend to reduce research and intervention to remedial action on malnourished bodies or on food production. A number of alternative perspectives draw on work on both bodies and on systems which are reviewed here. Because both the causes and the impacts of poor nutrition are simultaneously embodied and systemic, our understanding is weakened without considering both sets of literature simultaneously. New-materialist, assemblage or posthuman approaches represent an evolution of these literatures which can reflect on dissolving socio-natural boundaries within contemporary (nutritional) science, whilst retaining a critical edge. Together, the various approaches within this paper help consider the conditions of everyday existence for those living with malnutrition and the range of bodily and systemic factors which assemble their condition.

What is the Nature of a Post-Materialist Paradigm? Three Types of Theories.

What does it mean to have a post-materialist theory? I propose that there are three classes or categories of theories. (1) Type I post-materialist theories: neo-physical theories that are derived from materialist theories, where the materialist theories are still seen as primary and are viewed as being fundamentally necessary to create "non-material" (yet physical) phenomena such as consciousness. (2) Type II post-materialist theories: post-materialist theories of consciousness existing alongside materialist theories, where each class of theories are seen as primary and are viewed as not being derivable from (i.e. are not reducible to) the other And (3) Type I post-materialist theories: where materialist theories are derived from, and are a subset of, more inclusive post-materialist theories of consciousness; here post-materialist theories are seen as primary and are viewed as the ultimate origin of material systems. Type I theories are the least controversial, Type III are the most controversial. The three types of theories are considered in the context of the history of the emergence of post-materialist science.

Intergenerational Differences in Materialist and Post-materialist Values in a Sample of Hispanic New York City Residents / Diferencias intergeneracionales en valores materialistas y post-materialistas en una muestra de residentes hispanos de la ciudad de Nueva York

The present study evaluates the personal values reported by a sample of New York Hispanic residents using an open evaluation format in which the participants identified and prioritized their personal values. Four hundred and forty-five participants were assigned to one of three groups: Young (N= 159), Adult (N= 168) and Senior (N= 118). The values reported were categorized into post-materialist, materialist or non-classifiable. The Percentage Difference Index between post-materialist and materialist values was calculated in order to determine the value profile for each age group. The results showed that reports of personal values and values attributed to the participants' own generation were similar in Adult and Senior groups, but were very different in the Young Group, with a differential report of post-materialist values. Furthermore, exposure to American culture did not appear to have a significant effect on the reported values of NYC Hispanics. To confirm these findings, we need to conduct additional studies with larger samples of culturally diverse populations.

Se exploran los valores en una muestra de hispanos de New York, empleando un formato abierto en el que los participantes identifican y priorizan su valores personales y los de su generación. Los 445 participantes se distribuyeron en tres grupos: Jóvenes (N = 159), Adultos (N = 168) y Mayores (N = 118). Los informes de valores se categorizaron como postmaterialistas, materialistas o no clasificables, y se calculó el Percentage Difference Index entre valores postmaterialistas y materialistas para determinar el perfil de valores de cada grupo. Los resultados mostraron que los informes de valores personales y generacionales fueron similares en los grupos Adulto y Mayor, y diferentes en el Grupo Joven con un reporte diferencial entre valores personales y generacionales. Por otro lado, el tiempo vivido bajo la influencia de la cultura norteamericana parece no tener un efecto significativo en el informe de valores para esta población. Para confirmar estos hallazgos son necesarios estudios adicionales con muestras más amplias y en poblaciones culturalmente diversas.

Ocupación y literatura, un análisis desde la dialéctica materialista / Occupation and dialectics, an analysis from materialistic dialectic

La necesidad de generar conocimiento en torno al estudio de la ocupación en un contexto Latinoamericano lleva a replantear los enfoques y métodos actualmente utilizados para estos fines. Dentro de esto, consideramos que la literatura latinoamericana es una fuente de realidades ocupacionales, ya que se ha caracterizado a nivel mundial por el fuerte contenido histórico en sus narraciones, brindando cotidianeidades que enriquecen el análisis de las ocupaciones en un contexto real, con elementos propios de nuestra historia y nuestra cultura. Para abordar la complejidad de esta búsqueda, se propone la dialéctica materialista como fuente necesaria de desarrollo, que nos permite abordar no solo la complejidad de los elementos en juego, sino además comprender los procesos desde el movimiento y desde su historicidad. Es así que en el presente trabajo, y como ejercicio inicial en esta compleja temática, realizamos el análisis de una ocupación extraída de un libro de literatura chilena del siglo XX, nos referimos a Hijos del Salitre, de Volodia Telteiboim. En este ejercicio analítico se observan diversos aspectos de la ocupación a través de categorías dialécticas, que nos permiten, en primera instancia explorar diversos ámbitos del fenómeno ocupacional que actualmente no habían sido considerados. Finalmente, y como proceso necesario para el aprendizaje y el desarrollo de conocimiento, es que realzamos autocríticas y autoobservaciones del mismo ejercicio de análisis realizado.

The need to generate knowledge related to the study of occupation within a Latin-American context leads to reformulate the focuses and methods currently used for these ends. Furthermore, we consider that Latin American literature is a source of occupational realities, since it has been characterized, in a Worldwide level, for its Strong historical content in its narrations, providing quotidian events which enrich the analysis of occupations in a real context, with elements of our own culture and history. To approach the complexity of this search, materialistic dialectics is proposed, as a necessary source of development, which allow us to approach not only the complexity of elements in play, but also to understand the processes from the movement and from its historicity. Thus, in the present paper, and as an initial exercise in this complex theme, we make the analysis of an occupation extracted from a book of 20th Century Chilean literature , we refer to “Hijos del Salitre” (Children of nitrate), from Volodia Telteiboim. In this exercise, diverse aspects of occupation are observed, through dialectic categories, which allow us, at the first instance, to explore different areas of occupational phenomenon which nowadays were not considered Finally, and as a necessary proccess to learning and development of knowledge, we make self-criticisms and self-observations of the same exercise analisys excercise carried out.