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Perceived health inequalities: Are the UK and US public aware of occupation-related health inequality, and do they wish to see it reduced?

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Version 2 2023-12-20, 17:00
Version 1 2023-11-15, 15:45
journal contribution
posted on 2023-12-20, 17:00 authored by Emma Bridger, Angela Hewett, David Comerford

Background

One underexamined factor in the study of lay views of socioeconomic health inequalities is occupation-related health. Examining health by occupational social class has a long history in the UK but has been comparatively overlooked in US public health literatures, where the relationship between health and work has attended more to hazard exposure.

Methods

Representative samples of the UK and US indicated the perceived and ideal lifespan of people working in “higher managerial/professional” and “routine” occupations. We examine perceptions of inequality and desires for equality across occupation groups as a function of country and key socio-demographic variables.

Results

67.8% of UK and 53.7% of US participants identified that professionals live longer than routine workers. Multivariate models indicated that US participants were markedly less likely to be aware of occupation-related inequalities after controlling for age, gender, and education. Awareness was negatively related to age (in the US) and recent voting behaviours (both samples). Desiring equal life expectancy was less likely in the US sample, and less likely across both samples among older participants and those with lower levels of education.

Conclusion

Employing a novel approach to measuring perceived and ideal life expectancy inequality, this is the first study to examine perceptions of lifespan inequality by occupational groups. It reports widespread understanding of the occupation-related gradient in lifespan and a desire that these inequalities be eliminated in the UK, but considerably less awareness and desire for equality in the US. Greater tolerance for social status inequalities in the US than other similar countries appear to also extend to differences in life expectancy.

Funding

British Academy for a BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (SRG20\200150)

History

Author affiliation

School of Psychology and Vision Science, University of Leicester

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Published in

BMC Public Health

Volume

23

Issue

2326

Publisher

BMC

issn

1471-2458

Copyright date

2023

Available date

2023-12-20

Language

en

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