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Issue 6, July 2000, pp.5.

Reports from the Programme conference:
The experience of place
Carol Thomas, Jennie Popay, Anthony Gatrell, Gareth Williams, Lisa Bostock and Sharon Bennett

This presentation considered what qualitative research can tell us about the influence of areas of residence on health. We all live in particular 'places'. Can our experience of these places play a formative role in shaping our health status and well-being? The research reported suggests that it might.

People's accounts of the places in which they live convey a strong sense of personal security or insecurity, of belonging or alienation. When people talk about 'the place where I live' they make reference to the features of the physical landscape, to the services, facilities and other resources in the locality, but most of all to the other people who live in the area. These features of locality weld together into individuals' place experiences with profound significance for the practicalities of day-to-day life and psychosocial well-being.

The people the project researched live in areas which differ along the familiar criteria of relative 'affluence' and 'deprivation'. The research found that place experiences differ markedly in parallel with these socio-economic signifiers of locality. It is common for people in socially deprived areas to have very negative place experiences.
The presentation illustrated how these variations in place experience experience can play a key role in generating health inequalities.

Associated reference:
Gatrell, A., Thomas, C., Bennett, S., Bostock, L., Popay, J., Williams, G. and Shahtahmasebi, S. (2000) 'Locating people in geographical and social spaces, in H. Graham (ed.) Understanding Health Inequalities, Buckingham : Open University Press.