Sociological approaches to understanding health, illness, and health care systems include analysis of how they impact social order, how they relate to social conflict and inequality, and how societies construct definitions and expectations of health and illness. Sociologists also study the social identities of health care providers and how social factors influence decisions to pursue …
Sick role is a term used in medical sociology regarding sickness and the rights and obligations of the affected. It is a concept created by the American sociologist Talcott Parsons in 1951. Parsons was a functionalist sociologist who argued that being sick means that the sufferer enters a role of “sanctioned deviance”.
The sociology of health and illness studies the interaction between society and health. In particular, sociologists examine how social life impacts morbidity and mortality rates and how morbidity and mortality rates impact society. This discipline also looks at health and illness in relation to social institutions such as the family, work, school, and religion as well as the …
Table 13.1 “Theory Snapshot” summarizes what they say. Good health and effective medical care are essential for the smooth functioning of society. Patients must perform the “sick role” in order to be perceived as legitimately ill and to be exempt from their normal obligations.
Sociologists study social understanding of health and illness, as well as medicine as a social institution. Social stratification shapes the access different social groups have to health and health care. These inequalities exist within societies and on a global scale.
Factors such as socioeconomic status, race, and gender shape people's health and access to health care.
The general idea is that the individual who has fallen ill is not only physically sick, but now adheres to the specifically patterned social role of being sick. “Being Sick” is not simply a “condition”; it contains within itself customary rights and obligations based on the social norms that surround it.
The Sick Role. Sick role is a term used in medical sociology regarding sickness and the rights and obligations of the affected. It is a concept created by the American sociologist Talcott Parsons in 1951.
deviance: Actions or behaviors that violate formal and informal cultural norms, such as laws or the norm that discourages public nose-picking. structuralism: A theory of sociology that views elements of society as part of a cohesive, self-supporting structure.
structuralism: A theory of sociology that views elements of society as part of a cohesive, self-supporting structure. Structural functionalism, or simply functionalism, is a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability. This approach looks at society ...
Functionalism addresses society as a whole in terms of the function of its constituent elements (namely norms, customs, traditions, and institutions ), much like the interacting organs within the human body.
Herbert Spencer: Herbert Spencer was a prominent functionalist sociologist, who likened the functioning parts of society as organs within a body. Functionalism addresses society as a whole in terms of the function of its constituent elements; namely norms, customs, traditions, and institutions. A common analogy, popularized by Herbert Spencer, ...
The theory outlined two rights of a sick person and two obligations. The sick person’s rights are twofold: the first one is being exempt from normal social roles; the second one is not being responsible for their condition.
The sociology of health and illness studies the interaction between society and health. In particular, sociologists examine how social life impacts morbidity and mortality rates and how morbidity and mortality rates impact society. This discipline also looks at health and illness in relation to social institutions such as the family, work, school, ...
Health, or lack of health, was once merely attributed to biological or natural conditions. Sociologists have demonstrated that the spread of diseases is heavily influenced by the socioeconomic status of individuals, ethnic traditions or beliefs, and other cultural factors. Where medical research might gather statistics on a disease, ...
There are obvious differences in patterns of health and illness across societies, over time, and within particular society types. There has historically been a long-term decline in mortality within industrialized societies, and on average, life-expectancies are considerably higher in developed, rather than developing or undeveloped, societies.
Health and illness are social constructions: Physical and mental conditions have little or no objective reality but instead are considered healthy or ill conditions only if they are defined as such by a society. Physicians “manage the situation” to display their authority and medical knowledge.
A sociological understanding emphasizes the influence of people’s social backgrounds on the quality of their health and health care. A society’s culture and social structure also affect health and health care.
Health refers to the extent of a person’s physical, mental, and social well-being. As this definition suggests, health is a multidimensional concept. Although the three dimensions of health just listed often affect each other, it is possible for someone to be in good physical health and poor mental health, or vice versa.
As this definition suggests, health is a multidimensional concept. Although the three dimensions of health just listed often affect each other, it is possible for someone to be in good physical health and poor mental health, or vice versa.
Good health and effective medical care are essential for the smooth functioning of society. Patients must perform the “sick role” in order to be perceived as legitimately ill and to be exempt from their normal obligations.
The physician-patient relationship is hierarchical: The physician provides instructions, and the patient needs to follow them. Social inequality characterizes the quality of health and the quality of health care.
Conflict theory. Social inequality characterizes the quality of health and the quality of health care. People from disadvantaged social backgrounds are more likely to become ill and to receive inadequate health care. Partly to increase their incomes, physicians have tried to control the practice of medicine and to define social problems as medical ...
The sick role divides into two groups; the rights and the obligations.
Sociologist Mildred Blaxter carried a large survey and then identified three definitions to health and well-being; Two being a negative definition; ‘Regarding health as being free from pain or discomfort. And lastly a functional definition; ‘regarding health in terms of being able to perform certain, day-to-day tasks.
In the western country obesity is seen as ill health, unattractive and associated with negative stereotypes. Obesity is still seen as a sign of wealth and well-being in many parts of Africa.
The sick person is free from any social roles. For example work, or school, they should be allowed to take the day off in order to get back to normal
Disability is seen by Tom Shakespeare as restrictions that arise for a person with impairments because society does not take into account the needs of people with impairment for example someone in a wheel chair not having ramps in buildings or someone deaf not having hearing aids available.
Women have two roles, also known as ‘double day’ which signifies two roles women have to undertake. First of all as a housewife, taking care of her domestic duties, and the other as a worker/employer. Sociologist Doyal suggests that it is the fact that women have two roles in society, that they getting sick.
Sociological Perspective on Health. Health is a state of complete well‐being: physical, mental, and emotional. This definition emphasizes the importance of being more than disease free, and recognizes that a healthy body depends upon a healthy environment and a stable mind. Medicine is the social institution that diagnoses, treats, ...
According to the national Center for Health Statistics, the top ten causes of death are: heart disease, cancer, blood vessel diseases, accidents, lung diseases (not cancer), pneumonia and flu, diabetes, suicide, liver disease, and homicide.
Preventive medicine is a more recent approach to medicine, which emphasizes health habits that prevent disease, including eating a healthier diet, getting adequate exercise, and insuring a safe environment. Sociology assumes that a functioning society depends upon healthy people and upon controlling illness.
Today, drug rehabilitation programs and the broader culture generally recognize addictions as a disease, even though the term “disease” is medically contested. In today's culture, addicts may take on the sick role as long as they seek help and make progress toward getting out of the sick role.
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, or AIDS, first emerged in the early 1980s in the male homosexual community. Because of the disease's early association with a lifestyle many people considered immoral, society granted those who acquired the disease little to no sympathy and denied them the sick role.
According to the national Center for Health Statistics, the top ten causes of death are: heart disease, cancer, blood vessel diseases, accidents, lung diseases (not cancer), pneumonia and flu, diabetes, suicide, liver disease, and homicide. At the beginning of the century, the leading causes of death were tuberculosis, pneumonia, diarrhea, heart disease, nephritis, accidents, blood vessel diseases, cancer, bronchitis, and diphtheria. Discovery and development of vaccines and antibiotics meant that diseases once deadly are curable or nonexistent. People live longer, thus suffering more diseases associated with old age such as heart disease, cancer, and blood vessel diseases. What has also changed is physicians' abilities to recognize and diagnose disease more accurately. In the past a death may have been ascribed to “old age,” when today a physician might diagnose cancer.
At the beginning of the century, the leading causes of death were tuberculosis, pneumonia, diarrhea, heart disease, nephritis, accidents, blood vessel diseases, cancer, bronchitis, and diphtheria. Discovery and development of vaccines and antibiotics meant that diseases once deadly are curable or nonexistent.
This article deals with medical sociology. It introduces the discipline, analyzes illness narratives, focuses on the social body, appraises health as a social system and looks at the Feminist and Cultural perspectives on health. Further, it discusses witchcraft as a normative system of healing, studies narratives of women’s health and analyzes popular perceptions of medicine in India. It then critically examines immunization from a sociological lens and subjects public health in India to a critical scrutiny.
Sociology is concerned with the meanings and subjectivities of human actors or agents, the relationship between agency and structure (Inhorn) and the constraining factors , broadly defined as power relations, that constitute social order in society- as well as the problem of inequality.
Medicine was a means of controlling human morality- for instance through diet and exercise, it sought to regulate the human passions of gluttony and sloth, as well as ‘irrational’ sexual desires (Freund).
Illness experiences are the practical difficulties of navigating illness problems – such as inability to climb stairs, back pain that distracts one from chores or work, or sexual impotence leading to divorce. This is multivocal and culturally defined.
Science itself is socially constructed- which is revealed in the biased nature of research. For instance, women’s ailments receive less attention and funds than men’s – and the focus remains on their reproductively related morbidity and mortality (Inhorn).
Biomedicine provides a view of women’s health that is fragmented and reflects narrow physiological concerns. It essentializes women as reproducers or potential reproducers, which, given the centrality of childbearing in women’s lives, can be empowering, but can also overshadow the other aspects of their lives.
The Third Five Year Plan emphasized health, family welfare and water supply ; however maternal mortality continued to rise (Patel). Liberalization, the Oil Shock and other globa economic processes further diluted the successes of the Plan. After the Sixth Plan, things began to change.
In her handbook of the sociology of health and illness, Bernice defines health as a state of the optimal capacity of an individual allowing an effective performance of his or her social duties and tasks. This term optimum capacity does not give adequate specificity in what areas is one healthy.
Based on WHO, the definition of health is clearly stated as a state of wellbeing, physically, mentally and socially, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
Health is a key component in the survival and optimal functioning of every human being. It is considered a continuum according to Neumann (2009) which factors in the human being and environment with close interrelation to illness and disease concepts. Following the acknowledgment of this fact, various models developed by various scholars have ...
Based on WHO, the definition of health is clearly stated as a state of wellbeing, physically, mentally and socially, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. The definitions factors in all the aspects of health and in case of a deviation, it can easily be determined (WHO, 2014)
According to sociologists’ views, the society functions determine the health of its individuals, as well as the prevention of illness, (Talcott Parsons, 2006) and further explained that the happenings in the society make us perceive our natural bodies as unnatural.
The biomedical model approaches health through a scientific approach, which involves interrelated fields all with an aim to achieving the well being of an individual as a whole. It involves a physician diagnosing a particular condition followed by its management to correct the condition.