Essay On Health Inequality

Whatever in urban countries or rural countries, health inequality is a common issue.

However,health inequality is only an individual problem, not just related a person 's own body health and economic status. Health inequality is mostly affected by social factors, such as gender and work class. the writer would pick up the gender as an example to explain health inequality, and look through the medical technology and government policy, to find out the pattern of health inequality have or have not change over the years.

The factors of gender health inequality

Firstly, the reason why gender becomes a factor to health inequality is the gender stereotypes. Gender stereotypes are the public presentation of gender identity. It means the image of men and women is decided by the society. Besides, it is a widely belief that man should act more masculine such as behaving in more dominant, competitive and responsible. Woman should be act more femininity such as passive, gentle and compassionate. In fact, the stereotypes of gender affect the health status of men and women in the society. According to the statistics, it shows the death rate and morbidity rate of men and women, men have a higher mortality

Men are less frequently using health care services, and there is a sociocultural factor affects their behavior. Dominant masculine cultures and value affect men’s help-seeking behavior. For example, suppression of emotion and self-sufficiency are barriers to men to seek help (Seymour-Smith, Wetherell, Phoenix, 2002, p.253-267). Thus, men tend to keep quiet about ill-health to avoid show their weak or ‘sissy’. Instead, men refuse to share their feeling or depression, as they define their behavior as ‘tough’ in keeping with the social expectation of men. Thus, men will not seeking health care services. As a result, the socio cultural factor is negatively affected men and the morbidity of man will be