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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Lay understandings of the effects of poverty
— a Canadian perspective | | Author(s) | Linda I Reutter, Gerry Veenstra, Miriam J Stewart |
| Journal title | Health & Social Care in the Community, vol 13, no 6, November 2005 |
| Pages | pp 514-530 |
| Source | www.blackwellpublishing.com/hsc |
| Keywords | Poverty ; Attitude ; Social surveys ; Canada. |
| Annotation | Factors influencing perceptions of the effects of poverty are described using data from a telephone survey of a random sample of 1,671 adults from eight neighbourhoods in two large Canadian cities, Edmonton and Toronto. A further 153 people living in the same neighbourhoods were also interviewed. Multivariate linear and logistic regressions were used to determine the effects of basic demographic variables, exposure to poverty and attribution to poverty on three dependent variables relating to the effects of poverty: participation in community life, the relationship between poverty and health, and challenges facing low-income people. 91% of respondents agreed that poverty is linked to health; 68% agreed that low-income people are less likely to participate in community life. Affordable housing was deemed especially difficult to obtain by 96%, but other resources (e.g. engaging in healthy behaviours) were also viewed as challenging by at least 70% of respondents. The regression models revealed that when controlling for demographics, exposure to poverty explained some of the variance in recognising the effects of poverty. Media exposure positively influenced recognition of the poverty-health link, and attending formal talks was strongly related to understanding challenges of poverty. Attributions to poverty accounted for slightly more of the variance in the dependent variables. Specifically, structural and sociocultural attributions predicted greater recognition of the effects of poverty, in particular the challenges of poverty, while individualistic attributions predicted less recognition. Older and female respondents were more likely to acknowledge the effects of poverty. Income was positively associated with recognition of the poverty-health link, negatively associated with understanding the challenges of low-income people, and unrelated to perceptions of the negative effect of poverty on participation in community life. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-051118503 A |
| Classmark | W6: DP: 3F: 7S |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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