Lifecourse of place, and intergenerational transmission of health determinants : a long-term view of factors affecting health in two deprived areas in Malta

Abstract

Using an approach framed by health geography perspectives (including the idea of ‘lifecourse of place’ as a health determinant), this study explores how the wellbeing of residents interviewed in two parts of Malta between 2013‒2015 were found to be influenced by the physical, economic and social aspects of their place of residence, which had been generated over the long-term life-course of the place. Both study areas are relatively deprived, compared with the country of Malta as a whole, for reasons which we show to be partly associated with long term political and economic processes influencing the ‘lifecourse of place’ in these neighbourhoods. However, we also demonstrate how historically determined processes such as development of the built structure of neighbourhoods, political events, development of labour markets and employment practices, together with evolution of cultural norms, social processes and features of social capital have developed in rather different ways in the two study areas. We argue that this helps to explain why the contemporary local conditions that are seen by local residents to be important for their health and wellbeing also differ in some ways between the two places. This study therefore emphasises how and why historic development of conditions in places matter for the contemporary determinants of health and wellbeing.