Health and Medicine

Read this chapter for a review of health and medicine. As you read each section, consider the following topics:

  • Should parents be forced to immunize their children?
  • What might sociologists make of the fact that most of the families who chose not to vaccinate were of a higher socioeconomic group?
  • How does this story of vaccines in a high-income region compare to that in a low-income region, like sub-Saharan Africa, where populations are often eagerly seeking vaccines rather than refusing them?
  • Take note of the term medical sociology as well as the difference between the cultural meaning of illness, the social construction of illness, and the social construction of medical knowledge
  • Take notes of social epidemiology and various theories of social epidemiology used to understand global health issues. What are some of the differences between high-income and low-income nations?
  • Take note of the application of social epidemiology to health in the United States. Also focus on the disparities of health based on gender, socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity. Lastly, be able to define the terms stigma and medicalization.
  • Take note of the different types of health care in the United States. How do these health care systems compare with those of other countries?
  • Explore health care issues through conflict, interactionist, and functionalist perspectives.

Summary

The Social Construction of Health

Medical sociology is the systematic study of how humans manage issues of health and illness, disease and disorders, and healthcare for both the sick and the healthy. The social construction of health explains how society shapes and is shaped by medical ideas.


Global Health

Social epidemiology is the study of the causes and distribution of diseases. From a global perspective, the health issues of high-income nations tend toward diseases like cancer as well as those that are linked to obesity, like heart disease, diabetes, and musculoskeletal disorders. Low-income nations are more likely to contend with infectious disease, high infant mortality rates, scarce medical personnel, and inadequate water and sanitation systems.


Health in the United States

Although people in the United States are generally in good health compared to less developed countries, the United States is still facing challenging issues such as a prevalence of obesity and diabetes. Moreover, people in the United States of historically disadvantaged racial groups, ethnicities, socioeconomic status, and gender experience lower levels of healthcare. Mental health and disability are health issues that are significantly impacted by social norms.


Comparative Health and Medicine

There are broad, structural differences among the healthcare systems of different countries. In core nations, those differences include publicly funded healthcare, privately funded healthcare, and combinations of both. In peripheral and semi-peripheral countries, a lack of basic healthcare administration can be the defining feature of the system.


Theoretical Perspectives on Health and Medicine

While the functionalist perspective looks at how health and illness fit into a fully functioning society, the conflict perspective is concerned with how health and illness fit into the oppositional forces in society. The interactionist perspective is concerned with how social interactions construct ideas of health and illness.