Playing with stigma has fatal consequences
In our previous blog Challenging the ‘sicknote culture’ narrative, we discussed how policy makers labels certain people as less deserving of support, especially when they need state assistance. This harmful framing, evident in terms like "sicknote culture" and "skivers vs. strivers" both used by the UK Government to sets the stage for cutting essential services. These services are vital for some people in the long-term and for many of us at different points in our lives.
The divisive idea of who is deserving, or not, both feeds into and leverages stigma around substance use. It marks people as socially unacceptable due to their behaviour, health condition, or even how they die. For example, Adfam’s (Bereaved through Alcohol and Drugs) BEAD project found that:
“Drug and alcohol deaths are often viewed as less acceptable by society, due to perceptions and judgments around immorality, illegality, poor choices, and deficient parenting.”
“The shame and stigma that result from these attitudes can present an obstacle in seeking informal and professional support.”
We reflect on these matters in light of new research published recently by the International Inequalities Institute and written by researchers at LSE and King’s College London. The research looks at the tragic impact of austerity spending cuts between 2010 and 2019 on people from highly stigmatised populations.
The study found that life expectancy dropped by an average of five months for women and three months for men, equating to about 190,000 excess deaths or a three percent increase in mortality rates over the period. Factors responsible for these deaths include "deaths of despair" from drug poisoning. Changes in healthcare spending and welfare accounted for 1,000 preventable deaths—approximately three percent of all drug-poisoning deaths in England and Wales between 2010 and 2019.
In short, divisive narratives that feed and leverage stigma to push through policy decisions have huge implications for those whose lives are cut short and for those who grieve for them. The coded phrase for austerity was the simplistic "difficult decisions," used by ministers at the time to explain how state funds would be allocated. This reminds me of the term "necropolitics," coined by Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe, which refers to the use of social and political power to dictate how some people may live and how some must die. Necropolitics highlights how certain populations are excluded from the social and political order, effectively becoming less human.
We shouldn't forget that using stigma to justify policy decisions has a grim and tragic reality. One person’s "difficult decision" can be another person’s early, avoidable death which leaves families unable to grieve. Let's strive for a society that values every life and death equally and without judgment.
