As healthcare becomes multifaceted and the relationship between an individual and their health becomes more personalized, the WHOs view of health as a resource, and emphasis on social and personal resources, resonates well with the idea of viewing health as individualized capital. Drawing on Bourdieusian capital theory, Schnieder-Kamp conceptualizes health capital as ‘aggregate of the actual or potential resources possessed by a given agent that have the capacity to affect the position of agents in the social field of health’ (Schneider-Kamp, 2021). The resources can be personal, social, cultural and/or economical (Schneider-Kamp et al., 2023). This concept of health capital is being used to help us understand how individuals interact with healthcare services, healthcare professionals and their own health (Baum et al., 2021; Christensen & Carpiano, 2014; Chrzan-Rodak et al., 2024; Schneider-Kamp, 2022). Furthermore, the conceptualization can be used to guide global discussion on the health inequalities, as well as the facilitators and barriers to accessing healthcare (Odero et al., 2020) and cancer prevention (Ragelienė et al., 2024). It serves both as a lens for understanding barriers and facilitators of health behaviors within diverse contexts and as a connecting thread across them (Schneider-Kamp, 2021).
We apply this in two different contexts. Under the EU’s Cancer Prevention at Work (CPW) project, our work package aims to identify, assess, and address the behavioral and sociocultural barriers and facilitators of the interventions against infection-related cancers using mixed methods data collection. In the context of the Bandim Health Project in Guinea-Bissau, we conduct semi-structured interviews with caregivers of young children in Bissau city to learn about their health capital.
- Name of supervisor: Anna Schneider-Kamp anna@sam.sdu.dk
- Name of co-supervisor: Søren Tollestrup Askegaard aske@sam.sdu.dk
- Name of project participants: Sonja Wehberg swehberg@health.sdu.dk