SOCI 101 - Week 13/Ch14

Health and Illness

Health

• holistic - physical/mental/social well-being

• absence of disease/infirmity

• quality of life, functioning, overall wellness

Sociology - Medicine/Health/Illness

• bodies are social objects

• health/sick determined by society

• determinants - social/cultural forces

Acute Diseases

• sudden onset

• briefly incapacitating

• curable/fatal

• contagious, spread

• decreased rates

Chronic Diseases

• develop

• long period of time

• detected late

• symptoms late

• increased rates

Epidemiological Transition Theory

• Abdel Omran, 1971

• disease/death patterns

• time x societal development

• industrialization/modernization

• infectious → chronic diseases

• high → low mortality

• short → longer life expectancy

• assumes linear/western development path

• overlooks country inequality

• “double burden” - infectious + chronic simultaneously

Curative/Crisis Medicine

• healthcare

• treats disease/condition

• after manifestation

• no early treatment options

• acute illnesses

Preventive Medicine

• healthcare

• avoid/stall disease onset

• preventive measures

• lifestyle changes - regular exercise

• inexpensive, effective

• prevent chronic conditions

Palliative Care

• healthcare

• relieve symptoms/pain

• supportive environment

• critically ill/dying patients

• treatments available

• poor/modest expected outcomes

• treatment vs better quality of life

Medicalization

• behaviors/conditions

• personal problems → redefined as medical issues

• expands medical authority

• reframes social/behavioral/moral issues

• increases diagnosis/treatment/intervention reliance

• changes meaning of condition + individual

• Causes

  • medical professionals seeking authority

  • pharmaceutical industry expansion

  • patient advocacy groups

  • insurance/healthcare systems

• Critiques

  • over-pathologizing

  • loss of social/contextual problem comprehension

  • increased medical system dependency

• Subtype: biomedicalization

Biomedicalization

• medicalization

• advanced phase

• technoscience use

• transformation/enhancement/management

• technology/innovation emphasis

• risk/prevention/surveillance focus

• treat illness → optimize/enhance bodies

• self-monitoring health

• Critiques

  • reinforced inequality

  • varied access to tech

  • increased self-regulation/perfection pressure

  • corporate/technological control over bodies

Social Construction of Reality

• Peter L. Berger + Thomas Luckmann

• reality/health

• created via social interaction + shared meanings

• mental illness - stigma on depression/anxiety

• medicalization

• cultural differences - obesity definition varies

• historical change

• power/inequality role - institutional influence

Epidemiology

• disease pattern study

• cause of illnesses

• spread

• intervention

Epidemic

• disease occurrence

• # cases / disease

• particular time period

• higher than expected

Pandemic

• disease occurrence

• significantly high # of cases

• large geographical region - countries/continents

Vector Organisms

• mosquitoes, ticks, birds

• carry/spread pathogens

• given area

• impacted by climate change

• new ecosystems impacted

Pathogens

• germs

• infectious agents

Structural Functionalism - Health

• disease

• threat to social order

• sick cannot fulfill societal roles/contribution

• healthcare system

• return patients to normal health/functioning/members

Conflict Theory - Health

• healthcare system

• valuable resources

• unequally shared

• group conflict for access/control

Symbolic Interactionism - Health

• health/illness meanings

• historical/cultural/situational context

• stigma - disease states/sufferers

Fundamental Cause

• Phelan & Link, 1995

• health inequalities persist over time

• socioeconomic status (SES)

• fundamental cause of disease

• influence multiple diseases/factors/pathways

• inequality persists after medical advances

• impacts access to healthcare/tests/medications/nutrition

• flexible resources - protect health

  • money - income, wealth

  • knowledge - health literacy

  • power - institutional influence

  • prestige - social status

  • social connections - networks

• innovations benefit advantaged groups first

• high SES → prevention, early diagnosis, better treatment

• low SES → delayed care, higher exposure, fewer options

Structural Racism

• prejudice

• embedded in institutions

• built into laws/policies/systems

• unequal resource distribution/access

• residential segregation

• unequal schooling systems

• employment inequality

• environmental exposure

• healthcare bias

• racial health disparities

Structural Violence

• Paul Farmer

• social structures

• harm indirectly + systematically

• poverty/racism/inequality kill - lack of access

• inequality built into institutions - not accidental

Embodiment Theory

• Nancy Krieger

• social experience/inequality

• physically/biologically → human body

• over time

• social conditions

• external → internal

• society → lived experience → biology → disease outcomes

Life Course Theory

• health

• shaped across lifespan

• early childhood disadvantage

• long-term effects

Social Inequality - Health

• individual health

• shaped by socioeconomic status/race/gender/location

Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs)

• hold down costs

• pay doctors

• fee / person not fee / treatment

Food Desert

• little/no access

• fresh/affordable/healthy food

• densely populated

• urban area

• obesity/diabetes/disease risk

Deprivation Amplification

• individual disease risks

• based on heredity/physiology

• amplified by social factors

• neighborhood context

• race/class inequality

• big corporations

• governmental responses

Social Institution

• American Medical Association (AMA)

• transmits medicinal norms/values

• regulates licenses

• legitimized practitioners

• polices itself + encroachment on power

Cultural Competence

• acknowledging/incorporating patient’s cultural background

• part of treatment process

• recognition

• patients beliefs shape healthcare approach

• institutions address factors

• contribute to health disparities - minority groups

Sick Role

• actions/attitudes

• society expects from ill

• excused from normal responsibilities

• new responsibilities (seek treatment)

• diagnostic tech advances → concept changed over time

• at risk category - b/w sick and ill

Talcott Parsons

• functionalist, 1951

• sick = deviance

• sick role

• analyze function of medicine in society

• physicians - socially control deviance

Complementary Medicine

• group of medical treatments/practices/products

• conjunction w/ conventional western medicine

Alternative Medicine

• group of medical treatments/practices/products

• instead of conventional western medicine

Medical Ethics

• unprecedented growth

• medical science

• improve human health

• new advancements = new issues

• bioethics

Bioethics

• controversial morals

• related to scientific/medical advancements

• artificial life extension

• stem cell research

• animal use - medical research

• genetic testing - utro/birth

• living v dying

• human gene improvement