Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Health Risks in the Home: Children and Young People’s Accounts

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Families, Intergenerationality, and Peer Group Relations

Part of the book series: Geographies of Children and Young People ((GCYP,volume 5))

  • 884 Accesses

Abstract

Depending on definition and academic discipline, home can refer to a place, a space, a feeling, or certain practices. House and home are often conflated, but the physical dwelling is only one dimension. Home can be shorthand for an ideal and comfortable haven but is also recognized, by feminist researchers, for example, as a place where gender and age represent key dimensions for how members of a household view the meaning of home (Saunders and Williams 1988). Home is therefore understood as a multidimensional concept (see Mallet 2004 for a review). In this chapter, we discuss where children and young people localize risks, as well as how they manage risks in different settings with reference to the home in particular. Following a brief review of children and young people’s understandings and management of risk in different settings, this chapter draws on two case studies involving health risks in everyday life. The case studies involve children and young people from Scotland who live with parents who smoke and those from Sweden who have a food allergy. These cases are then discussed in relation to the wider literature to illuminate issues such as gender, spatial risk management, and child–parent relations within the home.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Akeson, N., Worth, A., & Sheikh, A. (2007). The psychosocial impact of anaphylaxis on young people and their parents. Clinical and Experimental Allergy, 37(8), 1213–1220.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alaszewski, A., & Coxon, K. (2009). Uncertainty in everyday life: Risk, worry and trust. Health, Risk & Society, 11(3), 201–207.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arias, K., Waserman, S., & Jordana, M. (2009). Management of food-induced anaphylaxis: Unsolved challenges. Current Clinical Pharmacology, 4(2), 113–125.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Avery, N., King, R., Knight, S., & Hourihane, J. O. (2003). Assessment of quality of life in children with peanut allergy. Pediatric Allergy and Immunology, 14(5), 378–382.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Backett-Milburn, K., & Harden, J. (2004). How children and families construct and negotiate risk, safety and danger. Childhood, 11(4), 429–447.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boholm, Å. (2003). The cultural nature of risk: Can there be an anthropology of uncertainty? Ethnos, 68(2), 159–178.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burks, A. W., Tang, M., Sicherer, S., Muraro, A., Eigenmann, P. A., Ebisawa, M., et al. (2012). ICON: Food allergy. The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 129(4), 906–920.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Christensen, P., & Mikkelsen, M. R. (2008). Jumping off and being careful: Children’s strategies of risk management in everyday life. Sociology of Health and Illness, 30(1), 112–130.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DunnGalvin, A., Gaffney, A., & Hourihane, J. O. (2009). Developmental pathways in food allergy: A new theoretical framework. Allergy, 64(4), 560–568.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eigenmann, P. A., Caubet, J. C., & Zamora, S. A. (2006). Continuing food-avoidance diets after negative food challenges. Pediatric Allergy and Immunology, 17, 601–605.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fenton, N. E., Elliot, S. J., Cicutto, L., Clarke, A. E., Harada, L., & McPhee, E. (2011). Illustrating risk: Anaphylaxis through the eyes of the food-allergic child. Risk Analysis, 31(1), 171–183.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gallagher, M., Worth, A., Cunningham-Burley, S., & Sheikh, A. (2011). Epinephrine auto-injector use in adolescents at risk of anaphylaxis: a qualitative study in Scotland, UK. Clinical and Experimental Allergy, 41(6), 869–877. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2222.2011.03743.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gallagher, M., Worth, A., Cunningham-Burley, S., & Sheikh, A. (2012). Strategies for living with the risk of anaphylaxis in adolescence: Qualitative study of young people and their parents. Primary Care Respiratory Journal, 21(4), 392–397.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glover, M., Kira, A., & Faletau, J. (2013). Smoke, smoking and cessation: the views of children with respiratory illness. Journal of Asthma, 5(7), 722–728.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Green, J. (1997). Risk and the construction of social identity: Children’s talk about accidents. Sociology of Health and Illness, 19(4), 457–479.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gupta, R., Scheikh, A., Strachan, D., & Anderson, H. R. (2003). Increasing hospital admissions for systemic allergic disorders in England: Analysis of national admissions data. BMJ, 15(327), 1142–1143.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harden, J. (2000). There’s no place like home: The public/private distinction in children’s theorizing of risk and safety. Childhood, 7(1), 43–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harden, J., & Backett-Milburn, K. (2008). Risiko und Vertrauen in Familien als Konstruktion und Aushandlungsprozess (The construction and negotiation of risk and trust in families). In H. Kelle & A. Tervooren (Eds.), Ganz normale Kinder. Heterogenität und Standardisierung kindlicher. München: Entwicklung Weinheim.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henwood, K., Pidgeon, N., Sarre, S., Simmons, P., & Smith, N. (2008). Risk, framing and everyday life: Epistemological and methodological reflections from three socio-cultural projects. Health, Risk & Society, 10(5), 421–438.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hunt, A. (2003). Risk and moralization in everyday life. In R. Ericson & D. Aaron (Eds.), Risk and morality. Toronto: University of Toronto Press Incorporated.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jenkins, N. (2006). ‘You can’t wrap them up in cotton wool!’ Constructing risk in young people’s access to outdoor play. Health, Risk and Society, 8(4), 379–393.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Joffe, H. (1999). Risk and ‘the Other’. Cambridge: University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Joffe, H. (2003). Risk: From perception to social representation. British Journal of Social Psychology, 42, 55–73.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klinnert, M. D., & Robinson, J. L. (2008). Addressing the psychological needs of families of food allergic children. Current Allergy and Asthma Reports, 8(3), 195–200.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lee, E., Macvarish, J., & Bristow, J. (2010). Risk, health and parenting culture. Health, Risk & Society, 12(4), 293–300.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mallet, S. (2004). Understanding home: A critical review of the literature. The Sociological Review, 52, 62–89.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mandell, D., Curtis, R., Gold, M., & Hardie, S. (2005). Anaphylaxis: How do you live with it? Health & Social Work, 30(4), 325–335.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Michell, L. (1989). Clean-air kids or ashtray kids – Children’s views about other people smoking. Health Education Journal, 48, 157–161.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Phillips, R., Amos, A., Ritchie, D., Cunningham-Burley, S., & Martin, C. (2007). Smoking in the home after the smoke-free legislation in Scotland: Qualitative study. British Medical Journal, 335, 553.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pidgeon, N., Simmons, P., Sarre, S., Henwood, K., & Smith, N. (2008). The ethics of sociocultural risk research. Health, Risk & Society, 10(4), 321–329.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Poland, B., Gastaldo, D., Pancham, A., & Ferrence, R. (2009). The interpersonal management of environmental tobacco smoke in the home: A qualitative study. Critical Public Health, 19, 203–221.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, J., Ritchie, D., Amos, A., Greaves, L., & Cunningham-Burley, S. (2011). Volunteered, negotiated, enforced: Family politics and the regulation of home smoking. Sociology of Health and Illness, 33, 66–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rous, T., & Hunt, A. (2004). Governing peanuts: The regulation of the social bodies of children and the risks of food allergies. Social Science & Medicine, 58(4), 825–836.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rowa-Dewar, N., Amos, A., & Cunningham-Burley, S. (2014a). Children’s perspectives on how parents protect them from secondhand smoke in their homes and cars in socioeconomically contrasting communities: A qualitative study. Nicotine and Tobacco Research, 16(11), 1429–1435

    Google Scholar 

  • Rowa-Dewar, N., Amos, A., & Cunningham-Burley, S. (2014b). Children’s resistance to parents’ smoking in the home and car: A qualitative study. Addiction, 109, 645–652.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rowa-Dewar, N., Lumsdaine, C. & Amos, A. (2015) Protecting children from smoke exposure in disadvantaged homes. Nicotine and Tobacco Research, 17(4), 496–501.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Royal College of Physicians (RCP). (2010). Passive smoking and children: A report of the tobacco advisory group of the Royal College of Physicians. London Royal College of Physicians. Retrieved 30 Oct 2013 from www.rcplondon.ac.uk/publications/passive-smoking-and-children.pdf

  • Saunders, P., & Williams, P. (1988). The construction of the Home: Towards a research agenda. Housing Studies, 3(2), 81–93.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simons, F. E. (2010). Anaphylaxis. The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 125(2), S161–S181.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stjerna, M.-L. (2015). Food, risk and place: Agency and negotiations of young people with food allergy. Sociology of Health & Illness, 37(2), 284–297. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12215.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stjerna, M.-L., Vetander, M., Wickman, M., & Olin Lauritzen, S. (2014). The management of situated risk: A parental perspective on child food allergy. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, 18(2), 130–145. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363459313481234.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tulloch, J., & Lupton, D. (2003). Risk and everyday life. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • van der Brugt, D. (2008). How children place themselves and others in local space. Geografiske Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 90(3), 257–269.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van der Brugt, D. (2015). Spatial avoidance or spatial confidence? Young people’s agency in the active negotiations of risk and safety in public space. Children’s Geographies, 13(2), 181–195.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Woods, S., Springett, J., Porcellato, L., & Dugdill, L. (2005). ‘Stop it, it’s bad for you and me’: Experiences of and views on passive smoking among primary school children in Liverpool. Health Education Research, 20, 645–655.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Population Health Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Teviot Place, Edinburgh, EH8 9AG, UK

    Neneh Rowa-Dewar

  2. School of Culture and Education, Södertörn University, Sodertorns Hogskola, Huddinge, 141 89, Sweden

    Marie-Louise Stjerna

Authors
  1. Neneh Rowa-Dewar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Marie-Louise Stjerna
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Neneh Rowa-Dewar or Marie-Louise Stjerna .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, United Kingdom

    Samantha Punch

  2. The School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

    Robert M. Vanderbeck

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Rowa-Dewar, N., Stjerna, ML. (2018). Health Risks in the Home: Children and Young People’s Accounts. In: Punch, S., Vanderbeck, R. (eds) Families, Intergenerationality, and Peer Group Relations. Geographies of Children and Young People, vol 5. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-026-1_16

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation