However, social class determined solely by one's occupation may not be completely accurate, as occupation is not in all cases the only source of income. For instance, one may have inherited a great deal of money and so, has no further need for employment. Reports state that in such cases exceptions must be made. (www.hsph.Harvard.ed./organisation/healthnet.html).
There are four approaches that attempt to determine the reasons for inequalities in health. The first of these four are the artefact explanations, here the suggestion is that that health and social class statistics are products of society and so the relationship occurring between them is of very little fundamental importance. This approach states that the reason for continuing inequalities in health is simply due to a reduction of people within the lower occupational classes. It states that if the people whom suffer from ill health were to join the higher social classes their health would improve. In opposition to these points several census results report that the poorer classes have not decreased as much as had been originally thought and indicate that there have been less improvements for people included in the manual occupational class than those falling into the unskilled category. In addition to this the artefact explanations also imply that the Register General's Classification of social groupings are considerably more suited to the male population. (Townsend, P. and Davidson. 1992).
The materialist theory proposes inequalities in health are based on a strong connection between health and deprivation of materials and as a result of this economic deprivation has a direct impact on mortality rates. However, in modern society this argument is becoming less and less influential, in the past those who could not afford to live in sanitised conditions were more likely to contract diseases such as cholera. Today however, many conditions similar to and including cholera have been eradicated throughout first world countries and as a result it seems that health may be less determined by social class as it once was.
