Wealth and Health Inequalities - Essay Example

Wealth and Health Inequalities This paper analyses a semi-structured qualitative interview on wealth and health inequalities. Indeed, the United Kingdom has been witnessing rapid growth in wealth inequality since the 1980s to this date. Although the growth rate has been reducing, income inequality is still a significant sociological issue in UK.1This paper delves on the research question that seeks to establish the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens. Ideally, there have been numerous empirical studies leading to fundamental arguments and debates on the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status in UK. Notably, the Spirit Level presented factual evidence and arguments that confirmed wealth inequalities as a social issue subject to public debate.2 The empirical research establishes a correlation between wealth inequality and health inequalities in UK.3 It is evident that people with higher incomes enjoy various benefits including health benefits. As such, an increase in levels of income may lead to access to better health care. Existing empirical research show that wealth inequality causes health and social problems. However, existing empirical research cannot ascertain whether an increase in income derives an equal increase in health. Other studies claim that income inequality only derives adverse health effects after reaching a certain threshold.4 Some existing empirical research relates health inequalities to other factors like material circumstances, culture/history, and ethnicity and welfare state institutions/social policies.5 These findings form the basis for a semi-structured qualitative interview on the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens. In putting my data in context, I will explain the aim of an interview. This study will conduct a semi-structured qualitative interview on the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens. The semi-structured qualitative interview seeks to explore the views, experiences, beliefs, and/or motivations of respondents on the research question addressing the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens. It aims at using pre-determined set of open questions while maximizing the interviewer’s opportunity to analyze specific themes that relate to wealth inequality.6 In this context, the aim of the interview is to develop insights, social concepts, and interpretations of the research question that defines the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens. Moreover, we use semi-structured interviews while we are sending several interviewers to collect data on the same topic.7 The interview aims at giving freedom to the respondents by allowing them to answer a set of pre-determined open questions related to the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens under their own terms.8 The other aim of the semi-structured interview is to offer a set of clear guidelines for interviewers with an overall goal of collecting reliable, comparable, and qualitative data on the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens.9 To ensure that the researchers have a clear understanding of the research topic, we use observations and unstructured interviews prior to the semi-structured interviews with an aim of developing relevant and meaningful semi-structured questions addressing the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens.10 Moreover, studies depict open-ended questions and training of interviewers with an aim of ensuring objectivity and creating an opportunity to establish new ways of analyzing and understanding the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens.11 The interviews allow respondents to raise other issues not addressed in the research question defining the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens.12 In this context, the interview aims at establishing the link between wealth inequality and health inequalities and main victims of income inequality. Qualitative interview methodology is fundamental in generating the qualitative data that defines the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens. Indeed, interviews are the most popular method used in a qualitative research. They help in collecting relevant, quality, and detailed data on how respondents experience and understand various sociological issues like the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens. Through qualitative interview methodology, we can ascertain the beliefs and motivations of respondents with respect to the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens. The fundamental types of qualitative research interviews include structured, semi-structured, and unstructured interviews.13 This study relies on a semi-structured qualitative interview to establish the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens. A semi-structured interview consist of a set of open-ended questions that define the research question and enable respondents to diverge with an aim of deriving more detailed information about the research topic.14 This qualitative method is significant in that it provides a deeper understanding of various social issues like the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens. Where researchers know very little about the research question, they use interviews. Qualitative interviews method address sensitive topics that affect the society like the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens. In conducting qualitative interviews, interviewers inform the interviewees about the study and address the ethical principles that will define the interview.15 Researchers opt to conduct qualitative interviews in quiet and serene environment at the convenience of the respondents.16 Interviewers familiarize themselves with the interview schedule before conducting qualitative interviews to enhance fluency and objectivity.17 Interviewers are good listeners and the conduct of any interview depends on the objectives of the qualitative study.18 There are different techniques of analyzing qualitative research data. The choice of qualitative analysis techniques depend on the variables, assumptions, and objectives of the research. In my case, the adopted qualitative analysis techniques seek to derive a detailed statistical analysis on the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens. The analysis began while conducting semi-structured qualitative interviews on the effects of wealth inequality on health inequalities. I am using taxonomic analysis to classify the collected data in pictorial representation that included graphs and flow charts.19 This is significant in deriving an understanding on the relationships between wealth inequalities and health in UK. I am also using componential analysis by categorizing the collected data in tables to establish the differences in income levels in UK.20 These qualitative analysis techniques address various variables and objectives of the study addressing the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens. There is a specific procedure to code data patterns defining the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens in a systematic manner. In this context, I will apply open coding, axial coding, and create a table of my data patterns of association. In open coding, I will seek to establish different concepts and categories in my data patterns. As such, I will break down the data into concepts using headlines and into categories using subheadings. I will differentiate concepts from categories using different colors. I will then transfer the concepts and categories into an outline. In axial coding, I will use the concepts and categories to re-read the data to confirm whether they represent the views of the respondents. I will also establish how the concepts and categories relate to one another. Ultimately, I will transfer the confirmed headings and subheadings into a data table. My research findings are valid and reliable in establishing the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens. Indeed, reliability and validity are major aspects in qualitative research. The capacity of a qualitative research to be valid and reliable relies on the researcher’s skills. In my case, I used semi-structured qualitative interviews that increase the reliability and validity of my findings on the link and impact of wealth inequality on health status of UK citizens. I also trained the interviewers on the research study prior to conducting the qualitative interviews. Indeed, my data is valid since it is credible, authoritative, and plausible. The findings met the research objectives since they established an acceptable link between wealth inequalities and health inequalities in UK. The findings are equally reliable since they are consistent with existing empirical studies on wealth inequalities in UK. Moreover, the findings define an accurate representation of the entire UK population. Bibliography Evaluation Toolbox, ‘Semi-structured Interview,’ http://evaluationtoolbox.net.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=31:semi-structured-interview&catid=19:formative-evaluation-tools&Itemid=137, 2010, (accessed 26 August 2014). Gill1, P. et al., ‘Methods of data collection in qualitative research: interviews and focus groups,’ British Dental Journal, vol. 204, 2008, pp. 291 – 295. Onwuegbuzie, A. et al., ‘Qualitative Analysis Techniques for the Review of the Literature,’ The Qualitative Report, vol. 17, no. 56, 2012, pp. 1-28. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, ‘Semi-structured Interviews,’ http://www.qualres.org/HomeSemi-3629.html, 2008, (accessed 26 August 2014). Rowlingson, K, ‘Does income inequality cause health and social problems?’ http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/inequality-income-social-problems-full.pdf, 2011, (accessed 26 August 2014). Read More