IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v73y2011i4p530-534.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Prevention better than cure? Health consumer and patients' organisations and public health

Author

Listed:
  • Baggott, Rob
  • Jones, Kathryn L.

Abstract

Previous studies of groups representing patients, users and carers in the UK indicate that their principal focus is on health care and treatment services. In recent years, UK government policy has emphasised prevention and health promotion as part of its wider public health agenda. This paper investigates how this might have affected health consumer and patients' organisations (HCPOs) by presenting findings from an online survey of 312 UK groups undertaken in the summer of 2010. The sample was identified using the publicly available membership lists of a number of large alliance organisations. The survey achieved a 39% response rate. The findings suggest that the main focus of lobbying and campaigning remains on health care rather than public health issues. However, a significant minority of groups stated they prioritised public health campaigning and lobbying. Possible explanations for engagement with the public health agenda include: the presence of public health on the government's agenda, the influence of other, more powerful interests in the health policy process, and growing awareness among groups of health promotion, prevention and environmental causes of illness. The paper argues that although HCPOs may be more active in the public health policy arena, more research is needed - notably with regard to their relationship with devolved governments, EU institutions and the current UK government's public health and voluntary sector agenda. The reasons why some groups engage more than others with the public health agenda also merit closer investigation. Moreover, not enough is currently known about the influence of HCPOs on the public health agenda and policies in this field.

Suggested Citation

  • Baggott, Rob & Jones, Kathryn L., 2011. "Prevention better than cure? Health consumer and patients' organisations and public health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(4), pages 530-534, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:73:y:2011:i:4:p:530-534
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953611003856
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brown, Phil & Mayer, Brian & Zavestoski, Stephen & Luebke, Theo & Mandelbaum, Joshua & McCormick, Sabrina, 2003. "The health politics of asthma: environmental justice and collective illness experience in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 453-464, August.
    2. Layne, Linda L., 2006. "Pregnancy and infant loss support: A new, feminist, American, patient movement?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(3), pages 602-613, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Baggott, Rob & Jones, Kathryn, 2014. "The voluntary sector and health policy: The role of national level health consumer and patients' organisations in the UK," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 202-209.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Epstein, Steven, 2016. "The politics of health mobilization in the United States: The promise and pitfalls of “disease constituencies”," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 246-254.
    2. Jeremy Mennis & Gerald J. Stahler & Michael J. Mason, 2016. "Risky Substance Use Environments and Addiction: A New Frontier for Environmental Justice Research," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-15, June.
    3. Kuchinskaya, Olga & Parker, Lisa S., 2018. "‘Recurrent losers unite’: Online forums, evidence-based activism, and pregnancy loss," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 74-80.
    4. Decoteau, Claire Laurier, 2017. "The “Western disease”: Autism and Somali parents' embodied health movements," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 169-176.
    5. Alison Kenner, 2021. "Emplaced care and atmospheric politics in unbreathable worlds," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(6), pages 1113-1128, September.
    6. Harlan, Sharon L. & Brazel, Anthony J. & Prashad, Lela & Stefanov, William L. & Larsen, Larissa, 2006. "Neighborhood microclimates and vulnerability to heat stress," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(11), pages 2847-2863, December.
    7. Dana H. Z. Williamson, 2022. "Using the Community Engagement Framework to Understand and Assess EJ-Related Research Efforts," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-26, February.
    8. Dana H. Z. Williamson & Emma X. Yu & Candis M. Hunter & John A. Kaufman & Kelli Komro & Na’Taki Osborne Jelks & Dayna A. Johnson & Matthew O. Gribble & Michelle C. Kegler, 2020. "A Scoping Review of Capacity-Building Efforts to Address Environmental Justice Concerns," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(11), pages 1-23, May.
    9. Yue Zhang & Yingying Sun, 2018. "The Effect of Ideology on Attitudes toward GM Food Safety among Chinese Internet Users," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-16, November.
    10. Mayer, Brian, 2012. "‘Relax and take a deep breath’: Print media coverage of asthma and air pollution in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(5), pages 892-900.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:73:y:2011:i:4:p:530-534. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.