'What else can you expect from class-ridden Britain?': the Whitehall studies and health inequalities, 1968 to c.2010. Issue 2 (3rd April 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Clark, Peder
• Is Part Of: Contemporary British history. Volume 35:Issue 2(2021)
• Page Start: 235
• Page End: 257
• Publication Date: 2021-04-03
• Subjects: Health inequalities -- Whitehall studies -- class -- stress -- heart disease; Great Britain -- History -- Elizabeth II, 1952- -- Periodicals; Great Britain -- History -- 20th century -- Periodicals; 941.085
• DOI: 10.1080/13619462.2020.1856082
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1361-9462

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The Whitehall studies of British civil servants, running from 1968 until the present day, are some of the most influential in twentieth century public health. Believing that the stratification that they observed among civil servants was replicated in wider society through the class system, the Whitehall researchers argued that inequality was a powerful force in society, literally embodied by incidence of disease. But as politicians and sociologists questioned the continuing relevance of class, this article explores how these studies reflected and were in conversation with prevailing social attitudes about inequality in end-of-century Britain.