Buy essay on How useful are definitions of poverty in helping us to understand the impact of being poor on health?

Nowadays poverty is a hot topic for debates in our society. In western science considerable attention is spared to the range of poverty problems. A study of poverty is the distinguishing feature of the developed countries and poverty is tightly connected with health area. The economic, political, social and cultural forms of its display, and also ways of its overcoming, are observed from year to year. In the frames of discussed question it is necessary to understand that definitions of poverty help us to be close to answer on the question about their impact on health. Definition of the term “poverty” and also measuring of poverty allow to guarantee that this policy is of the use to each person in our society.
The insufficient study of this theme stipulates the necessity of study of the accumulated experience of poverty observation. It is special topically in modern terms. Fuchs (1992) demonstrated that transition from one regime to other, based on market relations, the search of ways of crisis overcoming is accompanied by social instability and increase of social differentiation. Lal and Myint (1998) argued that society of universal equality to which we aimed in the past and which tried to create from year to year appeared utopia. Inequality and poverty in the most various displays always existed in our society, but often carried the hidden character. According to Berthoud (2004) transfer to the market economy assists appearance of general lines of this phenomenon.

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The necessity and possibility of the use of theoretical approaches and methods of study, formed in American sociology based exactly on previous statement. It is necessary to add that progress of sociological study of poverty trends are related to permanent expansion of research range of problems, complexity of consideration of the phenomenon and aspiration to go out for scopes especially economic interpretation of problem. Traditionally formed methodological principles of analysis are complemented by the methods of other sciences, forming the difficult hierarchy of base postulates, ignorance of which limits research problem possibilities of people who considered being below the poverty threshold in our country.
Millions of people are living in poverty and according to O’Boyle (1999), “the question, “What does it mean to be poor?” evokes a different response from one person to the next because each one’s answer is a reflection of a personal value system. When value systems diverge, wider agreement on any normative issue becomes more difficult, including how best to define poverty. This is not to suggest that defining poverty is a thoroughly arbitrary, personal matter. Rather, it is to underscore that the student of poverty should not expect to find or advance a definition which is acceptable to everyone. However, an improved definition is possible and with it wider agreement as to the extent of poverty.”
Researching question of poverty and the impact of being poor on health with more details it is necessary to say that there are several definitions of poverty. According to Zweig (2004), “the definition of the word poverty is: the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions.” The word poverty has an old history and it comes from the Latin word, which means poor in those times and sounds “paupertat”. I think that there should be presented several definitions of poverty and for some people, poverty is something like a comparative and subjective notion, for others, it is a kind of moral and evaluative characteristic, sometimes poverty is considered scientifically prescribed term. Thus, it is possible to emphasize that there as many definitions as there are many commentators, but in the wide sense poverty focuses at the wide range of different circumstances associated with hardship, need and lack of resources.