Health is ‘not merely the absence of disease and infirmity, but the complete physical, mental and social wellbeing’ – World Health Organisation. There is not only one universal definition of health because different cultures see being healthy differently to others. The materialist explanation of social class differences in health chances is that poorer health is caused by inequalities of wealth and income, not the other way round where the poor health causes the individual to have inequalities in wealth and income. The materialist explanation is saying that poorer people have a lack of money, which leads to ‘significant social class differences in health chances: working- class people are at greater risk of illness, disability and early death than middle – class people.’ as it says in Item C. This is due to the working class having a lack of money for a healthy diet, having poor quality housing and doing unhealthy work. The working class are less likely to have time off work than the middle class because they are poorer so are likely to lose pay, which they cannot afford to do. This would make them unhealthy because they would not be able to go to the doctors for treatment, so their condition could get worse and working more would make their stress levels higher all leading to an early death. As the working class work more hours, they could be doing dangerous jobs which could lead to a disability. The working class have to obey their authority so they have to take risks when doing the job they are told to do, whereas the middle class can choose how they work. Therefore, the materialist explanation is true because poor health is caused by the inequality of the working class, which makes them at a higher risk of dying early. The class difference in society affects how the individual lives and for how long they are healthy for. In Item C it states that ‘according to official health statistics, men in routine manual jobs are nearly three times more likely to die before the age 65 than men in higher managerial jobs.’ Men who do manual jobs are in the working class so they are at a higher risk of dying because they are working more hours and as they are in the working class there is a lot of inequality towards them. Item C also says that ‘according to the materialist explanation, these class differences are the result of factors such as the nature of work, insecurity and unemployment.’ The working class have to work in unfair conditions which are not safe, which could lead to having health problems for example, if you are working in a factory you are at a higher risk of developing a respiratory problem than the middle and upper class. The working class are more likely to be unemployed than the middle class because they do not have the rights to employ themselves for a job, as they have to apply for one from the boss who is in the middle or upper class. The result would be that the materialist explanation would be correct because the disadvantages which the working class have compared to the middle class is huge, so they have a greater chance of having a premature death. Also, the working class are likely to live in poverty because they have poor jobs and do not earn a good amount of money to be able to afford treatments for their health. The Inverse Care Law suggests that health care resources are allocated in inverse proportion to need. Item C says ‘the materialist explanation is often described as a structural explanation, since it sees the unequal structure of society as the underlying cause of class inequalities in health.’ This happens because poorer areas have less medical facilities like GP practices, so the working class get the least help and resources even though they need it more than the middle class. The explanation is called a ‘structural explanation’ because it is due to how the society is set up to determine how the working class live and materialists think the society is set up unfairly for the working class due to capitalism. As the richer areas have more resources, the middle class would have more knowledge and education of illness and prevention as they can ask more questions and can fight against inadequate services because the government listen to them so they will be healthier than the working class. They can also pay for treatments and the treatments are widely available to them in contrast to the working class. The materialist explanation supports this because the Inverse Care Law is evidence that the society is structured unfairly for the poor, so they cannot get good health services in their area. However, nowadays people do not think that the materialist explanation is the best explanation for the social class differences in health chances as it says in Item C ‘some sociologists argue that material deprivation is no longer the main cause of health inequalities in the United Kingdom today.’ They believe that it is ‘cultural and behaviour differences may now be more important.’ They think this because the gender differences could be the reason why there is different health chances in certain areas. In all types of jobs females are living longer than males so they are more healthy, whereas men are dying earlier because they do more practical jobs no matter which class they are in. Men also die before females because they have different attitudes towards their health than women as women are more likely to go to the doctors to seek treatment, despite their social class. This concludes that the materialist explanation does not take into account the behaviour or culture of an individual, but it only focuses on the capitalism system of a country.