Sociology of Health and Medicine
Sociologyindex, Books on Sociology of Health, Abstracts, Bibliographies, Syllabus, Journals, Sociology Books 2009, Sociology of Health and Medicine Abstracts in brief
Health and Social Behavior and the Sociological Concepts of Health.
Methods to the understanding of health and medicine in their social context of health, illness, and health care.
Subjective experience of health and illness; political, economic, and environmental circumstances that threaten health; and
Societal forces that impact on the medical care system and on people's responses to illness.
Sociological approaches to health and health care have a long
history. Many of the current preoccupations within the field of study of what for many
years has been known as 'medical sociology', but now which has increasingly been
redesignated as 'the sociology of health and illness', can be traced back to the founding
figures of the discipline of sociology in the 19th Century. These concerns relate on the
one hand to the extent to which social and economic structures determine people's life
chances and possibilities, including their possibilities of health. On the other hand they
relate to the extent to which people through individual or collective actions may have
some control over their lives, including in relation to their health. There continues to
be a debate within medical sociology about the extent to which structures determine
health, compared to the degree to which people have the capacity to control (to use their
agency over) their health.
Currently there is considerable research in medical sociology on the precise effects of a
range of inequalities - economic, class, gender, age and ethnicity for example - on
specific patterns of illhealth and disease. Further there is complementary research on the
degree to which the remedy to the differential distribution of health and illness should
be addressed mainly at a structural level (particularly by lessening economic inequalities
in populations), or at an individual level - through an individual's own lifestyle
decisions and actions. However the basic thrust of recent sociological findings is that
whilst lifestyle changes can be made at an individual level, they generally have a far
smaller effect on the health status of populations compared to more structural changes.
brunel.ac.uk/research/cshsd/Medical%20Sociological.htm
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The study of medicine and health policy is a central concern
of sociology. This is evidenced by the very active medical sociology sections within
national sociological associations and the abundance of literature in the field. Research
in social and cultural factors on health and upon comparative medical sociology and health
policy - ESA Research Networks - Research Network 'Medical Sociology and Health Policy' -
http://www.valt.helsinki.fi/esa/medsoc.htm
ASA - The Medical Sociology Section, one of the ASA's largest sections, brings together
social and behavioral scientists from a variety of backgrounds who share an interest in
the social contexts of health, illness, and health care. Central topics include the
subjective experience of health and illness; political, economic, and environmental
circumstances that threaten health; and societal forces that impact on the medical care
system and on people's responses to illness. Drawing from many perspectives, the field of
medical sociology is concerned with basic sociological research and its implications for
public policy and practice. - dept.kent.edu/sociology/asamedsoc/
The BSA Medical
Sociology Group promotes scholarship and communication in the field of the
sociology of health and illness in the United Kingdom. The group is one of the largest and
most active study groups of the BSA. - britsoc.co.uk/medsoc/
Research Committee on Sociology of Health RC15
Established in 1959 - isa-sociology.org/rc15.htm
Research into the sociology of health and illness is the primary objective of RC 15. It
supports individual scholars, institutions, and associations that are concerned with such
research. It promotes information exchange and scientific meetings at regional, national,
and international levels. It encourages the generation of sociological knowledge that
enables health professional administrators, officials, and planners to improve the
delivery of health services in the domains of prevention, management, cure, and
rehabilitation. It also stimulates the thinking of health scholars in search of the most
vital concepts and analytical frameworks for understanding health and illness in society.
MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit
sphsu.mrc.ac.uk/
Our aim is to promote human health via the study of social and environmental influences on
health.
Our more specific objectives include: studying how people's social positions, and their
social and physical environments, influence their physical and mental health and capacity
to lead healthy lives, designing and evaluating interventions aiming to improve public
health and reduce social inequalities in health, and influencing policy and practice by
communicating the results and implications of research to a wide range of audiences.
Kearl's Guide to Health Statistics and the Medical Establishment. In 1993, at the time of President Clinton's health care reform proposal, the nation's medical system made up one-seventh of the economy and employed 11 million people. trinity.edu/~mkearl/health.html
Sociology of Health and Medicine - Journals
Sociology of Health and Illness - blackwellpublishing.com/shil_enhanced/
Journal of Health and Social Behavior (JHSB) - jstor.org/journals/00221465.html
Culture, Health & Sexuality -
tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/13691058.html
Disability & Society - tandf.co.uk/journals/carfax/09687599.html
Ethnicity & Health - tandf.co.uk/journals/carfax/13557858.html
Mental Health, Religion & Culture -
tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/13674676.html
Health Sociology Review. - hsr.e-contentmanagement.com/
Books On Sociology Of Health And Medicine
An
Introduction to the Sociology of Health & Illness
Review
'Kevin White guides us through the many reasons for the centrality of health showing
clearly that health and illness are the products not just of our biology but of the
society into which we are born. He expertly draws on the works of Parsons, Marx, Foucault
and feminist writers to provide an authoritative analysis of the social nature of health'
- Ray Fitzpatrick, University of Oxford
Product Description: This is a new edition of the best-selling textbook for students in
the Sociology of Health & Illness.
The
Sociology of Health, Illness, and Health Care: A Critical Approach
Product Description: Presents a comprehensive overview that examines health and illness in
a narrative style, engaging readers and challenging them to question previously held
beliefs about health, illness, and health care.
The
Sociology of Health and Illness
The
Sociology of Health, Healing, and Illness (6th Edition) (MySearchLab Series)
Review
“It really covers all the points you wish to address in an undergraduate medical
sociology class.”
-William Haas, University of North Carolina at Asheville
“The book is effective in demonstrating the richness of the field of medical
sociology in addressing important social and organizational issues in health care.”
-Eldon Wegner, University of Hawaii at Manoa
“The textbook is impressive with its solid theoretical grounding in sociological
theory generally and medical sociology in particular. -Diane Shinberg, University of
Memphis
Product Description: The Sociology of Health, Healing, and Illnessis a comprehensive
medical sociology textbook that covers traditional topics in medical sociology, while
providing significant coverage of current issues related to health, healing, and illness.
The Sociology of Health and Illness: A Reader Book by Sarah Nettleton, Ulla Gustafsson (Editors)
Globalization And Health (International Studies in Sociology and Social Anthropology) - Book by Richard L. Harris, MELINDA SEID
Sociology of Health and Medicine Abstracts in brief
Socioeconomic health inequalities among a nationally representative sample of
Danish adolescents: the role of different types of social relations
P Due1, J Lynch, B Holstein and J Modvig
Study objective: To investigate the role of different types of social relations in
adolescent health inequalities.
Design: Cross sectional study. Measures included family social class, indices of social
relations to parents, friends, teachers, and school.
Conclusions: The school is one of the first important social institutions directly
experienced by children and socioeconomic differences in how adolescents and their parents
relate to the school may be part of the cascade of early life influences that can lead to
later social and health disadvantage.
Developing, Integrating and Perpetuating New Ways of Applying Sociology To Health,
Medicine, Policy and Everyday Life
Clair, Jeffrey., Hinote, Brian., Robinson, Caroline. and Wasserman, Jason.
Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association,
Abstract: Data for this paper involve a content analysis of a ten-year period (1993-2002)
of JHSB. The content of the articles were examined by substantive area and four foci: (1)
for explicit policy recommendations by the authors; (2) for interdisciplinary approaches
or focus, which would indicate a commitment toward the proliferation of sociology; (3) for
explicit statements of sociology as an applied science, and (4) for indications of
directional shifts within the practice of the discipline.
Contemporary legends, rumours and collective behaviour: some neglected resources
for medical sociology?
Dingwall, Robert
Publisher: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. Publication Name: Sociology of Health & Illness.
Subject: Sociology and social work ISSN: 0141-9889
Abstract: The "Missing Kidney" contemporary legend describes a person who
visited a nightclub, vanished for a weekend, then reappeared with a kidney having been
surgically removed.
Innovative Health Technologies and the Social: Redefining Health, Medicine and the
Body
Andrew Webster
Current Sociology, Vol. 50, No. 3, 443-457 (2002) DOI: 10.1177/0011392102050003009
This paper explores the growth and social implications of what are regarded as highly
innovative technologies in health. Conventional medical sociology and the sociology of
health have had a very uneven engagement with technology, apart from sustained feminist
critique of reproductive technologies.
Medicine must change to serve an ageing society
Eradicate age discrimination and increase resources
Alison Tonks, assistant editor
BMJ 1999 December 4; 319(7223): 1450–1451.
Doctors and those responsible for commissioning and shaping health services have failed to
acknowledge the rapid ageing of most societies.
Theorising Indigenous health: a political economy of health and substance misuse.
Health Sociology Review, Saggers, S. and Gray, D. (2002). 10, (2), pp. 21-32.
[RJ380]
Abstract: For more than two decades we have been engaged in a program of research which
examines the health of Indigenous people. In this paper we examine Indigenous drinking and
its consequences, outline a political economy approach to drinking, and discuss how this
has informed our work.
The Balance Between Group and Individual Rights
Sociology 318 - Northern Arizona University
Anne Diedrich
We live in a world of billions of people. Everyday, everything we do affects others. This
is especially true with health behaviors. When someone chooses to smoke their smoke then
affects the people around them as they inhale it. The health choices that a pregnant woman
makes always affect the health of her baby.
Inequalities in women's health
The research has examined the factors influencing women's health, highlighting
the extent to which paid employment for women is a source of health benefit or role
strain. Women's health is shown to be influenced by their marital and parental roles,
their participation in paid employment, and material circumstances, such as their class
and housing tenure. This work has compared women's health in Britain, Finland, Sweden and
Norway, contrasting the different levels of employment participation of women in each
society.
Governing the health of the hybrid self: Integrative medicine, neoliberalism, and
the shifting biopolitics of subjectivity
Fries, Christopher J
Article from Health Sociology Review Article - December 1, 2008
Abstract: This paper employs a Foucauldian perspective on the shifting spacialisation of
medical knowledge to explore the manner in which integrative medicine is discursively
represented by its biomedical architects. It is argued that integrative medicine
represents an expansion of medical rationality into all domains of human life: biological,
psychological, sociological, and spiritual.
The Rhetoric of Health Technology: The Microprocessor Patient Card.
Author(s): Godin, B.. Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to integrate
rhetorical studies into the sociology of technology by showing how the use of discourse to
enroll actors in a health technology.
Sociomedical Perspectives on Patient Care
Jeffrey Michael Clair and Richard M. Allman; eds.: Lexington, Kentucky:
University Press of Kentucky; 1993. $36.00. Review: Odin W. Anderson - annals.org
The physician-patient relationship has been an inherent problem throughout the history of
medicine and has never been fully resolved. Currently, the relationship is made even more
problematic by the proliferation of specialties, the various medical service
organizations, and the rising costs driven by technology.
The sociology of health promotion: critical analyses of consumption, lifestyle and
risk.
Bunton, R., Nettleton, S., Burrows, R.
Abstract: Health promotion as a topic worthy of study in itself has so far mainly escaped
the predations of sociologists: their services have been confined to uses within health
promotion (lifestyle surveys etc.).
In pursuit of health: Pragmatic acculturation in everyday life
Quah, Stella R
Article from:Health Sociology Review Article date:December 1, 2008
When disease strikes the most immediate reaction is to seek a solution: How to stop this?
How to get well again? Then comes the intriguing part: How did I get this problem, and why
me?