On Being Responsible: Ethical Issues in Appeals to Personal Responsibility in Health Campaigns

Guttman, N.; Ressler, William Harris

doi:10.1080/108107301750254466

Cited by 95 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 75 publications

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“…It might stigmatize and 'blame the victim' by sustaining individualistic stereotypes of lower SES people as uncooperative individuals who-due to personal failings-are not motivated enough to take control of their own lives (cf. Guttman & Ressler, 2001). Alternatively, it might perpetuate an equally stigmatizing, although somewhat less prevalent, stereotype of 'poor folk' as passive victims of circumstance, who have fallen prey to 'learned helplessness' due to limited life chances.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

'Just do it': An analysis of accounts of control over health amongst lower socioeconomic status groups

Bolam

Hodgetts

Chamberlain

et al. 2003

Critical Public Health

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Recent interest in health inequalities research has focused upon psychosocial factors such as a sense of control. Previous work has sought to measure or describe personal beliefs about control over health without addressing the contradictory and rhetorical dimensions of such accounts. These issues are explored through an analysis of interviews with 30 lower socioeconomic status (SES) participants drawn from two qualitative studies of health inequalities. Key findings concern the rhetorical construction and interweaving of two contrasting positions regarding control over health: fatalism and positive thought. Fatalistic talk provided a means by which participants acknowledged their limited control over health, although not in an exclusively negative manner. Talk about thinking positively enabled participants to present themselves as having agency in the face of adversity. The creative interweaving of these two positions in accounts of control over health enabled participants to navigate the moral imperative of responsibility for health in the context of adverse and capricious circumstance. By foregrounding the social character of accounts of control the significance of moral and ethical dimensions for health inequalities research and practice are highlighted.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

'Just do it': An analysis of accounts of control over health amongst lower socioeconomic status groups

Bolam

Hodgetts

Chamberlain

et al. 2003

Critical Public Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…16 Social marketing campaigns frequently address viewers as individuals, exhorting them to change their behaviour and suggesting that this is easy despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. 64,95,96 Given that these campaigns are widely thought to act on social norms, they arguably reproduce the tendency for members of the general public to unjustly allocate responsibility for health risks or diseases to individuals.…”

Section: Victim Blaming and Stigmatisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

How to Think about Health Promotion Ethics

2012

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Health promotion ethics is moral deliberation about health promotion and its prac tice. Although academics and practitioners have been writing about ethics, and especially values, in health promotion for decades, health promotion ethics is now regaining attention within the broader literature on public health ethics. Health promotion is difficult to define, and this has implications for health promotion ethics. Health promotion can be approached in two complementary ways: as a normative ideal, and as a practice. We consider the normative ideal of health promotion to be that aspect of public health practice that is particularly concerned with the equity of social arrangements: it imagines that social arrangements can be altered to make things better for everyone, whatever their health risks, and seeks to achieve this in collaboration with citizens. This raises two main ethical questions. First: what is a good society? And then: what should health promotion contribute to a good society? The practice of health promotion varies widely. Discussion of its ethical implications has addressed four main issues: the potential for health promotion to limit or increase the freedom of individuals; health promotion as a source of collective benefit; the possibility that health promotion strategies might "blame the victim" or stigmatise those who are disabled, sick or at higher risk of disease; and the importance of distributing the benefits of health promotion fairly. Different people will make different moral evaluations on each of these issues in a way that is informed by, and informs, their vision of a good society and their understanding of the ends of health promotion. We conclude that future work in

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“…Hence, neither the hierarchical inferiority of unhealthy minorities nor its image as “a problem” changes fundamentally. Blame and stigmatization may therefore always resurface in new, potentially challenging ways and may thus still present a barrier to health-deviant minorities’ health development, as e.g., the literature on advocating personal responsibility has been pointing out repeatedly (Guttman & Ressler, 2001; Ten Have, de Beaufort, Teixeira, Mackenbach, & van der Heide, 2011). In contrast, norm-critical education does not confirm and maintain the image of the Other as “a problem” as it deals with a completely different problem: the co-construction of a certain reality, the consequences this reality may have, and their eligibility.…”

Section: Why Norm-critics Instead Of Pedagogy Of Tolerance In Health mentioning

confidence: 99%

On mountains and prophets: targeting majorities to support minorities by using norm-critics in health education

Pelters

2018

International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well

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This debate article advocates for norm-critics instead of empowering coping and pedagogy of tolerance as an educational approach to mitigate stigmatization as well as blame and guilt for health-deviant minorities within the field of health disparities. Norm-critics is a way of making members of the (presumably healthy) normative majority uncover and question their health-related norms and raise awareness for the processes by which members of that majority re/construct images of stereotypic figures (such as “the fatso” or “the couch-potato”) with certain personal character traits which are to be condemned and, in doing so, limit the acting space of those identified as examples of those figures. The approach, its theoretical background, arguments promoting norm-critics, and some suggestions for its practical application are presented. It is concluded that norm-critics render a valuable and much needed addition to the health intervention repertoire.

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On Being Responsible: Ethical Issues in Appeals to Personal Responsibility in Health Campaigns

Cited by 95 publications

References 75 publications

'Just do it': An analysis of accounts of control over health amongst lower socioeconomic status groups

'Just do it': An analysis of accounts of control over health amongst lower socioeconomic status groups

How to Think about Health Promotion Ethics

On mountains and prophets: targeting majorities to support minorities by using norm-critics in health education

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