Smoking, Stigma and Social Class
- 15 June 2011
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Journal of Social Policy
- Vol. 41 (1), 83-99
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s004727941100033x
Abstract
The decline in cigarette smoking in high-income countries is attributed to the increasing social unacceptability of smoking, a cultural shift in which tobacco control policies are identified as playing a major part. While seen as essential to protect public health, there is a growing appreciation that these polices may have contributed to a social climate in which smoking is stigmatised. The paper reviews this debate on smoking and stigma. It notes that individuals are represented by their smoking status; other social differences are typically treated as secondary. Thus, while the links between disadvantage and smoking are acknowledged, social class remains on the margins of the debate. The paper argues instead that class provides an essential analytic lens through which to understand the stigma of smoking and the stigmatising impacts of tobacco control policies. In support of its argument, it discusses how the stigmatisation of smoking has occurred against a backdrop of widening socioeconomic differentials in smoking and the increasing importance of the body and behaviour in public discourses about social class and moral worth. The paper concludes by underlining the importance of embedding tobacco control research and policy in an appreciation of social class, and social inequalities more broadly.Keywords
This publication has 47 references indexed in Scilit:
- A rapid equity focused health impact assessment of a policy implementation plan: An Australian case study and impact evaluationInternational Journal for Equity in Health, 2011
- Regulating the Reproduction and Mothering of Poor Women: The Controlling Image of the Welfare Mother in Television News Coverage of Welfare ReformJournal of Poverty, 2010
- Stigma and the ethics of public health: Not can we but should weSocial Science & Medicine, 2008
- Stigma, ethics and policy: A commentary on Bayer's “Stigma and the ethics of public health: Not can we but should we”Social Science & Medicine (1982), 2008
- Moralising geographies: stigma, smoking islands and responsible subjectsArea, 2007
- Effect of Increased Social Unacceptability of Cigarette Smoking on Reduction in Cigarette ConsumptionAmerican Journal of Public Health, 2006
- The Tobacco Control Scale: a new scale to measure country activityTobacco Control, 2006
- ‘I Think That It’s a Pain in the Ass That I Have to Stand Outside in the Cold and Have a Cigarette’Journal of Health Psychology, 2006
- Accounting for risk and responsibility associated with smoking among mothers of children with respiratory illnessSociology of Health & Illness, 2006
- Qualitative Research and the Evidence Base of Policy: Insights from Studies of Teenage Mothers in the UKJournal of Social Policy, 2005