HEALTH STRATEGIES OF SOCIO-ECONOMICALLY MARGINALIZED CONSUMERS THROUGH A SPATIAL LENS
(A2023-113001)

AUTHORS

Cheryl Nakata, University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Lisa Sharp, University of Illinois at Chicago; Jelena Spanjol, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) Munich

ABSTRACT

Socio-economically marginalized individuals comprise a critical health market. Marketing scholars have extensively studied health strategies among mainstream consumers, but have ignored efforts by impoverished minorities to pursue health in the context of their everyday environments. To address this gap, we conduct an ethnography on poor and chronically ill persons of color, and apply a spatial lens to understand their strategies of addressing personal health needs in daily settings. We find consumers dwell in an ecology of hardship disparities and nested precarities, and in response enact four health strategies that vary in agency to negotiate the ecology’s multi-layered, complex spaces. Distinct life factors or circumstances, such as having access to a car or being in severe pain, play a role in determining which strategies they choose. Our paper concludes with theoretical, managerial, and policy implications.