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

## TL;DR

The paper explores how marginalized women in the UK practice self-care in response to systemic healthcare barriers and emphasizes the need for health policies that address structural inequalities.

## Contribution

The study highlights self-care as a relational and community-based practice among marginalized women, challenging the individualistic framing in health policy.

## Key findings

- Self-care is practiced as a response to systemic care scarcity in healthcare and workplaces.
- Self-care is embedded within informal support networks and is relational rather than individualistic.
- Health policies should address structural inequalities instead of placing burdens on marginalized individuals.

## 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.