The Study of Social Factors Impact on Health Inequalities Among Tabriz’s Residents
Author: Abdi, bahman , bahmanabdi74@yahoo.com
Department: sociology
University: Tabriz, Iran
Supervisor: dr.Hossein beni fatemeh
Year of completion: 2014
Language of dissertation: persian
Keywords:
Health
, Social factors
, Life style
, Inequality
Areas of Research:
Social Indicators
, Health
, Poverty, Social Welfare and Social Policy
Abstract
Attention to social factors effect on health decreased in recent years . In these context biological explanations of health replaced with multidimensional explanations. Sociologists had outstanding role in creating such a transformation in look at the health. As the result of sociological researches, health redefined as a societal concept with characteristics similar to other social concepts. This study attempts to provide a sociological definition for health and explain health inequalities with relying on variables such as social factors, demographic factors and life style. The theoretical framework of this study based on new approaches such as fundamental causes theory, socio- medical model of health, healthy behavior theory and social ties theory. In this study survey method and questionnaire in data gathering were applied. Sample size calculated with Cochran formula and multi-stage sampling method were applied for respondents selection. The questionnaire with 117 questions were used for data collection from 650 respondents in this study. Analyzing of extracted data from questionnaires was performed using the soft wares such as Excel, Amos and Spss. Health as a dependent variable were considered in four aspects including health related quality of life, disease experience, perceptions of physical health status and perceptions of mental health status. Social factors, life style and demographic characteristics considered as independent variables. The effects of these variables on health calculated with multivariate linear regression test. The results show statistical significant effect of independent variables on all dimensions of health. Also observed the positive and significant connection of all social factors with health related quality of life as a one of important dimensions of health(p≤0.05). the results of this research show significant inequality between men and women in health related quality of life, perceptions of physical health status and perceptions of mental health status. In all of these health factors the women’s scores were lower than men’s
