TY - JOUR
T1 - Bridging gaps in health?
T2 - A qualitative study about bridge-building and social inequity in Danish healthcare
AU - Tonnesen, Merete
AU - Momsen, Anne-Mette Hedeager
PY - 2023/8/1
Y1 - 2023/8/1
N2 - Attendance to health appointments may pose challenges to patients, especially when living in socially disadvantaged situations, with a fragile network. Inequality in health is increasingly highlighted in Denmark. To enhance social equity in health, a non-governmental organization introduced bridge-building, where healthcare students volunteer to accompany persons in socially vulnerable situations to health appointments. The purpose of the study was to explore what bridge-building entails and which gaps bridge-building attempts to span, in a welfare state, based on equal rights to healthcare.The study is based on an ethnographic fieldwork among the stakeholders in bridge-building, using interviews and participant observation in the form of “walking fieldwork”. Informants emphasized safe-making and wayfinding as important components in bridge-building, with bridge-builders acting as as-if-relatives. Bridge-building navigates in borderlands, the in-between spaces with fluid and contested borders, encompassing public, civic society, and family spheres. All informants emphasized that bridge-building covers a need in contemporary Danish healthcare. Bridge-building entails a double temporality, a here-and-now intervention where persons in vulnerable situations get social support to make it to health appointments, and a future investment in future health professionals’ understanding of vulnerability in lives and barriers to health access; insights that may be valuable in their future job positions.
AB - Attendance to health appointments may pose challenges to patients, especially when living in socially disadvantaged situations, with a fragile network. Inequality in health is increasingly highlighted in Denmark. To enhance social equity in health, a non-governmental organization introduced bridge-building, where healthcare students volunteer to accompany persons in socially vulnerable situations to health appointments. The purpose of the study was to explore what bridge-building entails and which gaps bridge-building attempts to span, in a welfare state, based on equal rights to healthcare.The study is based on an ethnographic fieldwork among the stakeholders in bridge-building, using interviews and participant observation in the form of “walking fieldwork”. Informants emphasized safe-making and wayfinding as important components in bridge-building, with bridge-builders acting as as-if-relatives. Bridge-building navigates in borderlands, the in-between spaces with fluid and contested borders, encompassing public, civic society, and family spheres. All informants emphasized that bridge-building covers a need in contemporary Danish healthcare. Bridge-building entails a double temporality, a here-and-now intervention where persons in vulnerable situations get social support to make it to health appointments, and a future investment in future health professionals’ understanding of vulnerability in lives and barriers to health access; insights that may be valuable in their future job positions.
KW - Bridge-building
KW - Denmark
KW - health attendance
KW - inequality
KW - inequity in health
KW - social support
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85166105639&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/17482631.2023.2241235
DO - 10.1080/17482631.2023.2241235
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 37527365
SN - 1748-2623
VL - 18
JO - International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being
JF - International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being
IS - 1
M1 - 2241235
ER -