Social Networks And Health Inequalities

This open access book applies insights from the network perspective in health research to explain the reproduction of health inequalities. It discusses the extant literature in this field that strongly correlates differences in social status with health behaviours and outcomes, and add to this literature by providing a coherent theoretical explanation for the causes of these health inequalities. It also shows that much research is needed on the precise factors and the social and socio-psychological mechanisms that are at play in creating and cementing social inequalities in health behaviours. While social support and social relations have received considerable attention within social and behavioural science research on health inequalities, this book considers the whole network of interpersonal relations, structures and influence mechanisms. This is the perspective of the social network analytical approach which has recently gained much attention in health research. The chapters of thisbook cover state-of-the-art research, open research questions, and perspectives for future research. The book provides network analyses on health inequalities from the perspective of sociology, psychology, and public health and is of interest to a wide range of scholars, students and practitioners trying to understand how health inequalities are reproduced across generations.

Andreas Klärner (PD Dr.) is Senior Researcher at the Thünen Institute of Rural Studies in Brunswick, Germany and also teaches at the University of Rostock, Germany. His research interests are social and health inequalities, rural poverty, and mixed-methods social network research. He is currently speaker of the standing group ‘Sociological Network Research’ in the German Sociological Association.

Markus Gamper (PD Dr.) is Assistant Professor at Department of Education and Social Sciences, University of Cologne. His research interests are social network analysis, sociology of migration and religion, social inequality, and the sociology of youth. He is the inventor and developer of the VennMaker software for visual-communicative analysis of social relationships and social networks.

Sylvia Keim-Klärner (Dr.) is Senior Researcher at the Thünen Institute of Rural Studies in Brunswick, Germany. Her research interests are in the areas offamily research, social inequality, social networks, qualitative and mixed methods. From 2014 to 2018 she was speaker of the standing group ‘Sociological Network Research’ in the German Sociological Association.

Irene Moor (Dr.) is Research Associate at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Institute of Medical Sociology. Her research interests are in the areas of health and health inequalities in childhood and adolescence, school-survey methods and (school) health promotion. She is the deputy PI of the Health Beaviour in School-aged Children Study (HBSC) in Germany.

Holger von der Lippe (Prof. Dr.) is Full Professor of Developmental and Family Psychology at the MSB Medical School Berlin. His research interests are in the area of family psychology, social network analysis, systemic psychotherapy and mixed methods approaches in psychological inquiry. He is speaker of the standing group ‘Social Networks and Health’ in the German Society for Network Research (DGNet).

Nico Vonneilich (Dr.) is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Medical Sociology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany. His research interests are in the area of health inequalities, social relations and health, social-epidemiology, and public health. He is speaker of the standing group ‘Health Sociology and Medical Sociology’ in the German Society for Medical Sociology (DGMS).