Understanding the impacts of industrial change and area-based deprivation on health inequalities, using Swidler’s concepts of cultured capacities and strategies of action

Abstract

This article will explore the utility of Swidler’s concepts of cultured capacities and strategies of action in mapping the pathways through which area-based, multiple deprivation and inequality impact upon resources for health, health outcomes and health inequalities. It will be argued that these concepts have the potential to bring the collective and aggregated impacts of resource distribution to the fore in unpicking the processes through which area-based inequalities become manifest in health outcomes. This has the potential to illuminate the some of the economic, social and political processes though which neoliberalism has generated widening health inequalities in the United Kingdom. To that end, these concepts will be employed in a case study of the post-industrial town of Clydebank. It will consider the implications for population health of changes in: the amount and quality of employment on offer; the quality and affordability housing; and the accessibility of social and political resources for those who live in more deprived areas. Swidler’s concepts will be used to theoretically map the relationships between the growing wealth inequalities, widening place-based inequalities and increasing health inequalities observed over the past few decades in the United Kingdom.