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conferenceseries
.com
September 25-26, 2017 | Atlanta, USA
2
nd
World Congress on
Medical Sociology & Community Health
Volume 7, Issue 4 (Suppl)
J Community Med Health Educ, an open access journal
ISSN:2161-0711
Medical Sociology 2017
September 25-26, 2017
GROWING UP, GROWING OLD: MOVING THROUGH THE LIFE COURSE WITH CHILDHOOD
PARALYTIC POLIO
Sonali Shah
a
a
University of Glasgow, UK
M
ore and more individuals with childhood impairments are moving into older life, and defying previous medical prognosis that
they will not survive that long. Their experiences and performance of life course roles in education, employment, marriage,
parenthood and retirement are shaped by the social impact of living with impairment and interacting with policies, institutions
and cultural environments in ways that are different to people who acquire impairments in later life. Further, despite assumptions
that their impairments will remain static, it is expected that this cohort will acquire comorbid and secondary impairments as they
age in a disabling society, and encounter ‘barriers to being’ as well as ‘barriers to doing’ (Thomas, 1999). This will inevitably add
to the complexity and cost of healthcare, and need for additional resources. Thus further exploration is required for design and
implementation of specific intervention that treat patients across the lifespan, as opposed to when they are within a particular
generational location. Both, scholars and service professionals, recognize the constraints of age-specific boundaries and the benefit
of adopting a life course lens to understand how onset of impairments at particular times of life are related and contribute to each
other. An example is childhood paralytic poliomyelitis and post-polio syndrome. This paper draws on the life histories of survivors
of paralytic poliomyelitis to understand how the interplay of individual biography and social structures shape experiences of people
with childhood impairments as they occupy different generational stages across the life course, and how disability impacts life events,
relationships and choices at each stage. The approach can be useful to understand the cumulative effects of childhood impairment as
disabled people move through biographical and historical time.
Biography
Sonali Shah adopts qualitative methods to explore the social inclusion and social equity for disabled people across the life course and intersectional identities -
ages, genders and ethnicities. A key concern of her research is to ensure the voices of historically marginalised and oppressed populations are listened to and
included in policies and practices that affect their well-being and participation in society.
Sonali.Shah@glasgow.ac.ukSonali Shah, J Community Med Health Educ 2017, 7:4 (Suppl)
DOI: 10.4172/2161-0711-C1-027