Bridging gaps in health? A qualitative study about bridge-building and social inequity in Danish healthcare

ABSTRACT

Attendance to health appointments may pose challenges to patients, especially when living in socially disadvantaged situations, with a fragile network. Inequality in health is increasingly highlighted in Denmark. To enhance social equity in health, a non-governmental organization introduced bridge-building, where healthcare students volunteer to accompany persons in socially vulnerable situations to health appointments.

The purpose of the study was to explore what bridge-building entails and which gaps bridge-building attempts to span, in a welfare state, based on equal rights to healthcare.The study is based on an ethnographic fieldwork among the stakeholders in bridge-building, using interviews and participant observation in the form of “walking fieldwork”.

Informants emphasized safe-making and wayfinding as important components in bridge-building, with bridge-builders acting as as-if-relatives. Bridge-building navigates in borderlands, the in-between spaces with fluid and contested borders, encompassing public, civic society, and family spheres. All informants emphasized that bridge-building covers a need in contemporary Danish healthcare.

Bridge-building entails a double temporality, a here-and-now intervention where persons in vulnerable situations get social support to make it to health appointments, and a future investment in future health professionals’ understanding of vulnerability in lives and barriers to health access; insights that may be valuable in their future job positions.

KEYWORDS:

• Bridge-building
• inequity in health
• inequality
• health attendance
• social support
• Denmark

Acknowledgement

We thank all participants in the study for their openness to let us follow bridge-building and for

valuable reflections. We thank Professor Claus Vinther Nielsen, DEFACTUM, for constructive comments on draft versions of the article. We thank reviewers for inspirational comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. La Cour (2014) refers to the type of voluntary work aimed at providing increased welfare and social care and based on face-to-face social interaction. Such form of social care is more personal than the professional care, yet less personal than the care we associate with family or friends.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Folkesundhed i Midten, Region Midtlylland [A3691]; Folkesundhed i Midten, Region Midtjylland [A3691].

Notes on contributors

Merete Tonnesen

Merete Tonnesen is a social anthropologist, PhD, and part of a research group at DEFACTUM, Central Denmark Region, that specializes in Public Health and rehabilitation. Her research interests include hope, temporality, and how persons navigate in everyday life when living with diseases and social vulnerability. She has a particular interest in life with Parkinson’s disease.

Anne-Mette Hedeager Momsen

Anne-Mette Momsen, physiotherapist, MPH and PhD, has since 2010 been a senior researcher at DEFACTUM, Central Denmark Region. Her research interests are broad, including work life/return to work interventions, prevention and rehabilitation, and inequality in health. She has a particular interest in systematic reviews.