Learning From Self-Care Practices Among Marginalised Women: Towards Embedding Health Justice in the UK Health Policy

Abstract

Self-care is a recurring theme in health policy, frequently positioned as a means of reducing demand on overstretched healthcare systems. In the United Kingdom, the growing interest in self-care as a policy solution has been ascribed to the heightened prevalence of chronic illnesses, over 15 years of austerity and their interaction with neoliberalism. This article juxtaposes policy framing of self-care with how it is conceptualised, practised and experienced by women from racialised minorities and low-income households living in the United Kingdom—groups that routinely encounter structural barriers to healthcare access. This study centres marginalised communities, drawing on arguments that those in such positions hold epistemic advantage, as they often develop nuanced understandings of the social relations that shape their marginalisation. Through thematic analysis of focus groups and interviews, we identify two dominant ways women described and practised self-care: (1) as a response to systemic care scarcity in healthcare services, workplaces and intimate relationships, and (2) as a relational practice embedded within informal networks of support. Grounded in an intersectional analysis, we argue these practices challenge dominant narratives of self-care as an individualised responsibility. Recognising existing self-care labour in marginalised communities requires health policies that address structural inequalities rather than shift burdens onto already constrained individuals.