Describe How Poverty, Social Class

U30 (P2) Health Psychology Describe 3 factors such as culture social class, gender, poverty and education may influence the way people respond to health and illness Poverty Imam’s house Individuals who are in poverty are more likely focused on the physiological l needs out of the hierarchy pyramid. My case study is sourced from BBC documentary, toughest place to be a bin man and is about a man called Imam Syaffi. Syaffi is 28 and lives in Indonesia with a monthly income of ? 8 by working six days a week from 6am to midnight as a rubbish collector and running extra errands for his wealthy neighbours as well as sorting and selling recycled rubbish. Imam lives in a shanty village with his wife, son and parents and their home is near to the mini landfill where Imam’s rubbish that he collects is transferred to a bigger landfill but it rarely does. Imam’s wages cover rent and small amount of food. Other luxuries are what Imam finds in the rubbish such as used shelves, mattresses and chairs.

Imam’s home is a giant health hazard as the rubbish near his house causes disease and encourages mosquitoes, flies and rats to infect the village, himself and his family. However, Indonesian government don’t supply health care like in England causing Imam to risk the possibilities of catching malaria, streptobacillosis or worse. Imam’s influences on poverty make him choose to supply the physiological needs of paying rent and food than constantly supply ways to protect his and family’s health and pay expensive medical bills.

Also, Imam finds it hard to provide healthcare for his family because upper classes can easily call authorities to make him unemployed if he isn’t doing his job properly if he needs to take the day off to take his wife to the hospital. However, Imam’s secret shows that he sneakily shows the upper-class that his cart is broken and unable to work by pulling out a tyre so he can take an occasional day off for the family.

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Also, Imam’s dedication to provide for the family by working over 12 hours each day can make him very stressed and tired which can causes him to have poor health but he would rather work more hours if he could so he could provide more luxuries for his family. Furthermore, the food Imam can buy with his salary shows that he can only afford basic foods such as milk for the son, water, rice and rare portions of meat and vegetables so that leads to poor nutrition compared to English rubbish collector Wilbur Ramirez from the documentary who has a better life but has the same job title as Imam.

Social Class Contrasting from my discussion about poverty I want to make a case study upon Wilbur Ramirez. Wilbur Ramirez job title is similar to Imam Syaffi but because his social class is higher than Imam that means that Wilbur escapes from being in serious poverty. Wilbur monthly salary is ? 1,700 and manages to live in Hammersmith, west London with his wife and three children. Hammersmith is decent area for families to live in London and quoted by a local, ‘I can't think of anywhere better to be a child than one of London's inner suburbs like Hammersmith’.

Wilbur’s hierarchy of needs are very different than Imam as he’ll be marked to fulfilling up to self-accusation because all the other needs are met because of his lifestyle as a working class English citizen. Wilbur’s job as bin man is less stressful due to shorter shifts than Imam and better pay which reduces risk of heart disease or tiredness. This means Wilbur is able to afford house bills as well as to provide for his family and buy extra luxuries.

Therefore, I believe his opinion on health and illness would be more focused about how he looks after himself by being trained by his employer to use the uniform when touching rubbish by always wearing gloves. Also, England’s public health and NHS targets people like Wilbur to be constantly cautious about their health unlike the rest of the world like Indonesia. Therefore, Wilbur would be cautious about giving his family good nutrition and easily receive professional health care because its tax paid. Picture of Imam (left) and Wilbur (right) Culture

Different cultures in general effects our responses to health and gives our opinion on what causes illness, how it’s treated, who should we seek for assistance? In the industrialised world in USA it sees’ disease as a form of a negative substance infecting the body that can be treated with medicine or hospital equipment to diagnose and treat the patient from the disease. However, other cultures believe that disease is caused by a paranormal activity and prayers, spiritual rituals or visiting a witch doctor would release the disease out of the body and destroyed by a higher authority.

This shows that health professionals should give patient compliance due to the sensitivity of one’s culture. Studies of group of Cambodian patients were reassured throughout their therapy by understanding how the medicines and the body work due to lack of education. However, since 2010 the quality of health is rising in Cambodia to increase the life expectancy and making awareness towards HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases but in Ratanakiri, Cambodia is receiving the worst healthcare causing endemic case of malaria, tuberculosis, intestinal parasites, cholera, diarrhoea and measles.

Also, maternal/ child mortality and severe malnutrition are issues that causes poor health and illness. Ratanakiri locals are most likely to respond to their faith which is most likely to be Buddhism to gain better health than modern health care. In Buddhism it’s believed that a person suffering from physical disease also suffers from a poor mindset therefore they have to devote their entire life to their faith and releases what poisoned their body; greed, anger and ignorance to heal the illness.

However, modern health care is accessible in this province but the medical equipment and supplies are minimal and the staff are poorly trained and irregularly paid. This gives mistrust for the locals to use professional help as they’re in risk to receive the incorrect care and other hospitals are far away near the big cities. Therefore, it’s most likely that in Ratanakiri; diseases are known to be paranormal spirit filled with greed, anger and ignorance than a biological infected substance.

However in more industrialised places in Cambodia they’ll believe the opposite due to better education, healthcare and scientific awareness. Ratanakiri Hospital -------------------------------------------- [ 1 ]. http://www. youtube. com/watch? v=6EWLQw9TiCM [ 2 ]. http://www. bbc. co. uk/programmes/b01bmtfx/participants/imam-syaffi [ 3 ]. http://www. bbc. co. uk/programmes/b01bmtfx/features/contrast-binmen [ 4 ]. http://www. fodors. com/community/europe/is-hammersmith-a-good-area-of-london. cfm [ 5 ]. http://www. euromedinfo. eu/how-culture-influences-health-beliefs. html/ [ 6 ].

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