How to Cite

Wild, Beate, Becker, Gabriele and Kampanaros, Dimitrios: Gesundheit im Alter: Subjektive Deutung in unterschiedlichen Lebenswelten, in Kruse, Andreas and Schmitt, Eric (Eds.): „... der Augenblick ist mein und nehm ich den in Acht“: Daseinsthemen und Lebenskontexte alter Menschen, Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, 2022, p. 177–223. https://doi.org/10.17885/heiup.844.c12425

License (Chapter)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Identifiers (Book)

ISBN 978-3-96822-075-8 (PDF)
ISBN 978-3-96822-076-5 (Hardcover)

Published

04/14/2022

Authors

Andreas Kruse, Eric Schmitt, Beate Wild, Gabriele Becker, Dimitrios Kampanaros

Gesundheit im Alter: Subjektive Deutung in unterschiedlichen Lebenswelten

Abstract In this chapter, health is considered primarily from the perspective of individual health behaviour as well as the individual view of personal and social factors influencing health; in addition, these two interpretations are placed in relation to social-structural characteristics. The chapter begins with an anthropological view of health, concentrating on contributions which delineate a compre­hensive understanding of the person and his or her life relations. In addition, basic statements on prevention are made to illustrate how legislators and different health disciplines interpret the preven­tive potential in the different phases of the life course. The subsequent steps are empirically driven. Different forms of health behaviour as well as the interpretation of personal and social factors influ­encing health are differentiated – also on the basis of cluster analyses. These different forms not only make it clear that people deal with their health (in health-promotion and preventive care as well as in medical-therapeutic and rehabilitative aspects) in very different ways, but also interpret very dif­ferently the extent to which their health can be influenced. As the analyses further show, patterns of behaviour and interpretation are influenced to a large extent by social-structural variables (such as social class), which can thus also be interpreted in terms of the (narrower or wider) “scope for action” that they open up.

 Keywords Health behaviour, living environment, opportunity structures, potentials in old age, prevention