Diverse socioeconomic processes influencing health and wellbeing across generations in deprived neighbourhoods in Malta

Abstract

This study contributes to the geography of health by emphasising intergenerational differences in health determinants in a Mediterranean context. Using a grounded theory approach, it aims to explore the intergenerational processes between parents and children and their impact on determinants of health and wellbeing by focusing on the neighbourhood processes, including human, social and cultural capital in their neighbourhood. Through structured in-depth interviews with parents and children coming from two deprived neighbourhoods in Malta, it was shown that what may be considered valuable and beneficial for the adults' wellbeing may be detrimental for their children. In other cases, the neighbourhood processes that are being experienced negatively by adults seem to be beneficial for the health and wellbeing of young people. Thus the neighbourhood does not influence the inhabitants of different age groups in a homogenous and consistent manner. Indeed, the experiences of adults and children, even though they belong to the same family and neighbourhood, may differ from each other. It also emerged that it is not only the parents who can influence determinants of a young person's wellbeing; children and adolescents are able to negotiate and contradict their parents' wishes and decisions in order to enjoy conditions that they find beneficial. This study therefore demonstrates how the processes related to the social determinants of health are not static but highly dynamic, even across generations.