Taking Health Care to the Day Shift : A Pilot for a New Health Care Service in Neighborhood Pubs

Abstract: This thesis is based on an ethnographic research on the role of health and public health care in neighborhood pubs in Helsinki. The goal was to understand why potential customers of the public health care services do not utilize the services offered. Based on the new understanding generated, a pilot health care service was developed in cooperation with two pubs, municipal health care, and the nursing students of Metropolia Applied University. The service took the form of a health visit, in which the nursing students entered the pubs in pairs to offer a possibility for metering blood pressure and blood sugar - as well as a chance to discuss any health-related issues. The pilot of these visits took place in two pubs in Helsinki in 2011. The ethnographic research for this thesis was carried out in these two pubs over the course of the pilot project. The research suggests that the social capital of the pubs can be applied in bridging the gap between the masculine cultural forms prevalent in the pubs and the social world of the public health care. Investigating the challenges facing the Scandinavian public health care system, as well as the historical trajectory of masculinity in the Finnish neighborhood pubs form the background for analyzing the health visit. The entire thesis is framed within the larger context of initiatives aimed at leveling socio-economic health inequalities.