Investigating the methodological applicability of intersectionality to physical activity and smoking in Canada
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: Sociology, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Abichahine, Hayfa
issued: 2013-04-19T09:14:32Z
issued: 2013
related degree: Master of Arts - MA
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: BACKGROUND: In Canada, substantial health inequities have been documented by income, education, gender, race, and sexuality. Researchers examining such inequities have typically employed ‘additive’ analyses where these variables are treated independently of one another. Some scholars have argued that the additive approach cannot fully illuminate health inequities by class, gender, race, and sexuality, calling for ‘multiplicative’ approaches inspired by intersectionality theory to replace additive approaches. PURPOSE: I investigate the applicability of intersectionality theory for explicating two health practices - physical exercise and smoking - using Canadian data. I predict that intersections of classism, patriarchy, racism, and heterosexism at macro levels of Canadian society affect the incidence of exercise and smoking at the individual level, in the case of physical exercise as a desirable pursuit which is facilitated by the privilege that accrues to multiple dominant-group identities and in the case of smoking as a coping mechanism for dealing with the oppressive stressors that accrue to multiple subordinate-group identities. METHODS: Informed by the theoretical underpinnings of current intersectional scholarship, I compare the ability of the additive and intersectional approaches to explicate these two health practices in Canada. Using nationally-representative data from the Canadian Community Health Survey Cycles 2.1 and 3.1 and binary logistic regression modelling, I examine and compare the main effects of class, race, gender, and sexuality (additivity) and then four-, three-, and two-way interaction effects between class, race, gender, and sexuality (multiplicativity) as predictors of physical activity and smoking. RESULTS: I find that results from the additive models are consistent with previous empirical research on physical activity and smoking. The interaction models produce statically significant three- and two-way interactions for physical activity a…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/44275
note: INVESTIGATING THE METHODOLOGICAL APPLICABILITY OF INTERSECTIONALITY TO PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND SMOKING IN CANADA by Hayfa Abichahine B.Sc., University of British Columbia, 2009 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Sociology) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) April 2013 © Hayfa Abichahine, 2013 ii Abstract BACKGROUND: In Canada, substantial health inequities have been documented by income, education, gender, race, and sexuality. Researchers examining such inequities have typically employed ‘additive’ analyses where these variables are treated independently of one another. Some scholars have argued that the additive approach cannot fully illuminate health inequities by class, gender, race, and sexuality, calling for ‘multiplicative’ approaches inspired by intersectionality theory to replace additive approaches. PURPOSE: I investigate the applicability of intersectionality theory for explicating two health practices - physical exercise and smoking - using Canadian data. I predict that intersections of classism, patriarchy, racism, and heterosexism at macro levels of Canadian society affect the incidence of exercise and smoking at the individual level, in the case of physical exercise as a desirable pursuit which is facilitated by the privilege that accrues to multiple dominant-group identities and in the case of smoking as a coping mechanism for dealing with the oppressive stressors that accrue to multiple subordinate-group identities. METHODS: Informed by the theoretical underpinnings of current intersectional scholarship, I compare the ability of the additive and intersectional approaches to explicate these two health practices in Canada. Using nationally-representative data from the Canadian Community Health Survey Cycles 2.1 and 3.1 and binary logistic regression modelling, I examine and compare the main effects of class, race, gender, and sexuality (additivity)…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2013-05
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0073824
language: eng
degree discipline: Sociology
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/44275