Volunteering, Identities and Wellbeing in Contexts of Health Inequalities
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6427022 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Simon J Armour (0000-0003-2929-9205), Gemma Yarwood (0000-0003-1804-7088), Hugh Mclaughlin (0000-0003-3916-0506), Julia Robinson (0000-0003-0719-3995) |
| Editors | Qing-Wei Chen |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 2025 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Health & Social Care in the Community (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0966-0410 • E-ISSN: 1365-2524 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1155/hsc/1690870 |
| OpenAlex | W4410601096 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 69 |
The causes of health inequalities are complex, involving material, psychosocial dimensions and power relations. Denigrating neoliberal discourses of individual responsibility shape and underpin policies which exacerbate poverty and compound its psychosocial impacts on people’s lives. Community asset‐based approaches, which mobilise voluntary action, have been proposed as a means of addressing health inequalities, and a substantial body of research suggests that participating in volunteering can bring benefits to psychological wellbeing. This study explores the experiences of volunteers with lived experience of poverty and other intersecting disadvantages, using an ethnographic psychosocial approach, adapted from the free association narrative interview method. It draws on participant observation and interviews with 11 volunteers and four managers within two settings within disadvantaged communities in a city in the north of England. The analysis of this data considers these experiences of volunteering in relation to theorised social and psychological drivers of health inequalities, as well as concepts commonly used in the literature on volunteering and health. Using a psychosocial lens reveals the significance of identity validation as a pathway through which volunteers within disadvantaged communities may resist denigrating narratives and make claims to ‘respectability’, which facilitate experiences of acceptance and belonging. While volunteering may ameliorate the impacts of inequalities on individual and community health and wellbeing, the individual, organisational and wider social contexts within which volunteering takes place are integral to these effects
Inequality · Sociology · Health disparities and outcomes · Health, psychology, and well-being · Mathematics · Mental Health and Patient Involvement · Psychology · Gender Studies
Revolting Subjects
Habitus and the psychosocial
Injustice is killing people on a large scale--but what is to be done about it?
Revitalising the evidence base for public health
Beyond Components of Wellbeing
Defining health and health inequalities
Feminist Ethnography
On Happiness and Human Potentials
One step back toward the future of health promotion
Giving an Account of Oneself
Social Identity
Applying a psychosocial pathways model to improving mental health and reducing health inequalities
A critical review of the definition of ‘wellbeing’ for doctors and their patients in a post Covid-19 era
Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being
Complexity and Community Context
What we’ve tried, hasn’t worked’
Connecting communities and complexity
Putting context centre stage
Volunteering in Later Life
A Rapid Review of Barriers to Volunteering for Potentially Disadvantaged Groups and Implications for Health Inequalities
How, when, and why is social class linked to mental health and wellbeing? A systematic meta-review
Stigma, shame and ‘people like us’
Neoliberalism, healthism and moral judgements
Interpret in context
Mapping the determinants of health inequalities in social space
How can ‘we’ help? Exploring the role of shared social identity in the experiences and benefits of volunteering
Gendering “The Hidden Injuries of Class”
A psychosocial approach to shame, embarrassment and melancholia amongst unemployed young men and their fathers
Volunteer Work and Hedonic, Eudemonic, and Social Well‐Being
Human agency and social suffering
Navigating the stigmatised identities of poverty in austere times
Volunteer Identity Salience, Role Enactment, and Well-Being
Role-Identity Salience, Purpose and Meaning in Life, and Well-Being among Volunteers
A social cure in the community
The “dark side” of food banks? Exploring emotional responses of food bank receivers in the Netherlands
Power, causality and normativity
Using thematic analysis in psychology
What's in a Hyphen? Reconstructing Psychosocial Studies
The geographies of food banks in the meantime
Multiple Identities and Psychological Well-Being
Dependency denied
Beyond inequality
An Invitation of Reflexive Sociology
Social Conditions As Fundamental Causes of Disease
Theory Construction in Qualitative Research
Hierarchies of social location, class and intersectionality
Shaming Encounters
The Co-construction of Shame in the Context of Poverty
Self, Belonging and Social Change
Health Power Resources Theory
Health inequalities
Health inequalities, fundamental causes and power
The violence of narrative
The Extended Case Method
Beyond Gender Difference to a Theory of Care
Fairness and the Politics of Resentment
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |