Perceptions of Socioeconomic Health Disparities in Low SES groups: A Qualitative Study

• In Event: ICA Interactive Paper/Poster Session II
  In Interactive Poster Session: Health Communication Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

20 personal face-to-face semi-structured interviews: 10 with young unemployed aged 18–33 years old and 10 with pensioners and retirees aged 58–68 years old, all Internet users, were conducted in order to explore how people in low SES groups perceive socioeconomic health disparities and identify their relationship with heath (digital) literacy and outcomes. This qualitative research goes beyond a quantitative measure of health disparities and provides insights into the ways people comprehend and interpret their perceived disparity and aims to advance a qualitative and thus deeper understanding of the participants’ perceptions of health disparities. Both groups seem not to accept disparity in absolute terms but in a more comparative context, by interpreting disparity in an age-related or job-related context. The study was also interested in how these perceptions were linked with health (digital) literacy so as to make low SES people efficiently use all possible health information sources.

Authors

• Evanthia Malinaki, Aristotle U of Thessaloniki

• Antonis Gardikiotis, Aristotle U of Thessaloniki