[The qualitative research on social inequalities in health: the life courses].

OBJECTIVES: Adopting a lifecourse perspective is more and more frequent in the health inequalities research field. This article describes such an approach, as applied in a study on poverty and social exclusion. METHODS: In this study, life histories were collected through open interviews and focused on the meaning of lived experiences. An original analysis table was used, in which words are grouped within categories identifying the different components of a lifecourse. RESULTS: Whether it refers to experiences lived in childhood or adulthood, the life history enables the placing of these within the individual's lifecourse. The horizontal analysis of different individual stories makes it possible to identify experiences that have harmful, or conversely, beneficial effects. When transferring results, reporting the experiences lived by the populations using the same words they did to describe them can help those responsible for program development or implementation understand the genesis of social health inequities. CONCLUSION: The analysis of life histories, based on the different components of a lifecourse, allows the identification of key moments in the interviewees' life evolution and, in an action perspective, to do so while taking health and social intervention fields into account. Such results make it easier to design actions to counter social health inequities - and above all their chronic nature - that are suited to the realities encountered.