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The critical political economy of health offers different explanations for the social causes of health and the social factors determining the distribution of these causes. However, the relational, post-anthropocentric and monist ontology of the new materialisms overcomes this complexity, while retaining a critical focus. In this perspective, the social, economic and political relations of capitalism act upon bodies and other matter in everyday events, rather than as 'social structures'. Using a conceptual toolkit of 'affect', 'assemblage', 'capacity' and 'micropolitics', the paper asks the question: 'what does capitalism do?' The re-analysis of the social and economic relations of capitalism in terms of a production-assemblage and a market-assemblage reveals not only the workings of capitalist accumulation, but also how previously-unremarked more-than-human affects in these assemblages simultaneously produce uncertainty, waste and inequalities. This micropolitical economy of health is illustrated with examples from recent research, including a critical assessment of health inequalities during the Covid-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevalence of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) diagnoses and medication use has increased over time around the world, but significant regional differences remain. This paper aims to determine and explain disparities in ADHD prevalence and medication use among school-aged children in two distinct school systems, in Flanders (Belgium) and Québec (Canada). We present detailed descriptive and comparative analyses of data from 35 schools, 114 teachers, and 1046 parents (children) that were collected as part of a comparative international project. The data concern teacher and parent suspicions, teachers' ratings of ADHD-related behaviors in children, teachers' views of medication use, and teachers' beliefs about ADHD. The results show that, compared with Flanders, Québec had significantly more children diagnosed with ADHD and more frequent suspicions of ADHD in children by teachers and parents. We refer to the conceptual, institutional, and interactional levels of medicalization to interpret our findings and conclude that social and cultural readings of children's behaviors differ greatly between regions. Medicalization of children's behaviors is more common in Québec than in Flanders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In some countries, including the United Kingdom, young mothers' pregnant and postnatal bodies remain an area of concern for policy and practice, with interventions developed to support improved health behaviours including diet and physical activity. This article explores what young women themselves think and feel about eating and moving during and after pregnancy. Semi-structured interviews with 11 young mothers were conducted within two voluntary organisations. Data were analysed using thematic analysis with the theoretical lens of embodiment, which provided an understanding of how young women's eating and moving habits related to how they felt about their bodies in the world. Four themes situated in different experiences of being and having a body were identified: pregnant body, emotional body, social body and surveilled body. Stress and low mood impacted eating habits as young women responded to complex circumstances and perceived judgement about their lives. Food choices were influenced by financial constraints and shaped by the spaces and places in which young women lived. Whilst young women were busy moving in their day-to-day lives, they rarely had the resources to take part in other physical activity. Holistic approaches that focus on how women feel about their lives and bodies and ask them where they need support are required from professionals. Interventions that address the structural influences on poor diet and inequalities in physical activity participation are necessary to underpin this. Approaches that over-focus on the achievement of individual health behaviours may fail to improve long-term health and risk reinforcing young women's disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on abundant racial and ethnic health disparities in many countries around the world. In Sweden, statistics on COVID-19 mortality and morbidity from both the first and the second wave of the pandemic show that foreign-born individuals have been disproportionately affected, compared to Swedish-born individuals. However, as demonstrated in this article, key stakeholders including politicians, public authorities, mainstream media, and medical researchers do not draw on the same explanatory framework when conceptualizing the health disparity. Probing the different discourses that were articulated through oral and written accounts during the first wave, the article identifies three different frameworks of how ethnic health disparities in relation to COVID-19 were understood in Sweden: the socioeconomic framework, the culturalist framework and the biological framework. We discuss the importance of our findings for health policy and argue for continued interrogation of epidemiological knowledge production from a critical vantage point in order to successfully combat health inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) has emerged as a significant public health issue, in Canada and elsewhere. Health experts increasingly acknowledge that the disproportionate impact of FASD on indigenous people is driven by social and historical contexts, especially in settler colonial states like Canada. However, they generally frame FASD as preventable through abstinence and the effects of FASD as manageable through provision of appropriate medical and legal protection to affected offspring. Drawing from Marxist, anticolonial and anti-imperial theories and applying a Critical Discourse Analysis approach, we identify the (re) production of colonial and capitalist dominance in the expert literature. We show that dominant narratives depoliticize FASD by conceptualizing settler colonialism as a past event, ignoring ongoing, contemporary forms of settler colonial dispossession and resituating FASD within an expert language that locates solutions to FASD within affected individuals and communities. In so doing, these narratives legitimize, and contribute to perpetuating, existing disease inequities, prevent the formulation of policies that address the very real and as yet unmet needs of FASD affected individuals, families and communities and erase from the public discourse discussions about changes that could truly address FASD inequities at their root. We conclude by elaborating on the implication of these narratives for policy, practice and equity, in Canada and other settler colonial states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The health of sex workers is considerably influenced by their position in society and by the marginalisation and stigmatisation they face worldwide. They are frequently criminalised and labelled as deviant, disordered or 'vulnerable': stereotypes that simplify and misrepresent their realities. Sex work policies create social and structural barriers, creating dangerous work environments and exacerbating significant health inequalities. Health organisations and their policies play an important role in highlighting inequalities and guiding health systems in reducing them. In this article, we use a document analysis design to analyse how and when sex workers are depicted in policies and publications by English national health organisations: National Health Service (NHS) England, Public Health England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, along with the UK Department of Health. We find that sex workers are largely absent in these documents and, when present, are depicted not using evidence, but simplistically with moralistic undertones. The dichotomous constructions found in these texts: vulnerable yet also criminal 'prostitute' reflect wider political and social constructions of sex working women. This not only obscures their realities but also homogenises, blames and stigmatises, ultimately doing the opposite of what these organisations purport to do: it damages their health and well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent public health policies have re-endorsed the key role all health and social care professionals have in tackling the social determinants of health inequalities. With inequalities firmly entrenched, and much theorising focused on reproduction rather than transformation, sustaining practitioner commitment and engagement with this work and maintaining confidence in achieving change is challenging. One increasingly popular way to intervene in practice to begin to address inequalities has been the use of resilience, even though resilience is frequently critiqued for its collusion with neoliberal imperatives in favouring individualised rather than socio-political responses. This article examines these concerns through the use of the practice turn and specifically 'slim-line' practice theory and 'tinkering' to explore the potential for reframing resilience theory and practice. Using an original data set derived from evaluations of resilience-based programmes, held with parents and practitioners between 2008 and 2012, this article re-examines participants' understandings of resilience. We show how practice theory reveals entangled and emergent meanings, competencies and materials that constitute resilience as a social practice comprised of resilient moves. The implications of this reframing are discussed in relation to ontology, agency and change; but also for resilience theory and practice and public health practices more generally. In conclusion, we argue practice theory's attention to context as more than mere backdrop to action helps shift inequality theorising beyond the individual and reproduction towards deeper, detailed social understandings of transformation and change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]