Poverty, health and ethnicity: The empirical experiences of researches in Northeast-Hungary

Abstract

The results of our empirical researches carried out in North-East Hungarian region is analyzed and compared with national and international experiences. During last decade, we examined social and health status of Gipsy/Roma people living in this region in frame of researches, two of them were proceed at county, others at settlement level. We present our results grouped around three problems, which gives a chance for empirical testing of hypothesis of other researches reflected on this problems. Typical sample’s characteristics of Hajdúböszörmény study made feasible to analyze the statements on correlation between underclass situation and ethnicity. Our results proved the statement that the poverty makes ethnical feature but not only Roma can be ranked among underclassed. In our study we deeply analyze coherence of ethnicity and poverty; besides of income poverty we touch the housing poverty, deprivation in wealth and living conditions, and the problems of social-political poverty. The health state was studied through the subjective health picture, utilization of the health care system, satisfaction with care services and the list of most frequently complaints, diseases.We aspired in our study to give structural and cultural explanation of examined phenomenon, moreover to present correlations, although because of research methods we rather analyzed successes of structural effects.