Chapter 13 Flashcards
Health & Ability
True or False: Sociology and Health are closely connected
True
types of sociologies where health and sociology are closely connected:
Medical sociology
Policy sociology
Critical sociology
Social ecology and epidemiology
(*healing is achieved through social means)
what can effect an individual’s experience of medical professions?
“Race”/ethnicity, gender, age, and class
The sick/patient role (aka medical sociology)
- Introduced by Talcott Parson (1902-1979)
- The social aspects of becoming ill and the privileges and the obligations that come with it
- 4 expectations
The 4 expectations of the sick role (patient role)
- Should be exempted from normal social responsibilities
- Should be taken care of instead of having to take care of themselves
- Are socially obligated to try and get well
- Are socially obligated to seek technically competent help
What does structural functionalism presume?
the social uniformity of experiences
E.L. Koos
- 1954
- critiqued Parson’s view of the sick role
- what people think/do about health is dependent on social class + people in higher occupational groups were better able to afford the sick role.
- uniformity of sick role can be based on gender, race, and age
Ivan Emke
-2002
- proposed new expectations for Canadians in the sick role:
1. Patients in New Economy (NE) are responsible for their own illnesses
2. Patients in NE are “not to be trusted”
the natural course of disease:
- The progress of a disease in an individual over time
- Get ill->experience symptoms->get well (or sicker and/or death)
- Medication can alleviate symptoms and speed up recovery
the social course of disease:
- the social interactions that a person goes through in the process of being sick and while being treated.
- shaped by social factors: ethnic background, culture, class, age, and sex/gender
Biomedicine:
the application/use of conventional Western scientific principles in the diagnoses and treatment of illness and disease (uses physical tests and physical treatments)
Alternative (complementary) medicine:
-*falls outside of conventional biomedical practices
- based on the notion that a person’s psychological state affects their ability to fight diseases
- e.g. acupuncture, herbal medicine, etc
Medicalization
(as defined by Chang and Christakis)
- the process by which certain behaviours or conditions are defined as medical problems… and medical intervention becomes the focus of remedy and social control
- promotes commodification of healthcare
Medicalization has been criticized as a form of reductionism that..
- reduces medical conditions to biomedical causes without examining possible sociocultural or political factors
- reduces the human body to systems and appendages rather than a whole being
Reductionism
the philosophical idea that all higher-level (e.g. social, mental or medical) phenomena and processes can be explained at a lower (simpler) level
Ivan Illich:
(1927-2002)
- introduced the notion of medicalization in the context of his critique of radical monopolies
- also came up with the concept of iatrogenesis.
Radical monopolies (Ivan Illich)
The autonomy to decide whether to use a technological device or not (aka-depriving patients of care that isn’t provided by doctors)
Iatrogenesis (Ivan Illich)
harm brought forth by a healer or any unintended outcome because of a health care intervention, not considered the natural course of the illness or injury.
- includes doctor generated medical complications; medical troubles linked to improper prescribing and lack of info
3 kinds: Clinical, Social, and Cultural
Clinical iatrogenesis
refers to the various ways in which diagnosis cause problems that are as bad or worse than the health problems they are meant to resolve (e.g. coming into hospital for one ailment and then getting another from hospital)
Social iatrogenesis
occurs when political conditions that “render society unhealthy” are hidden or obscured (e.g. the lax monitoring of laws concerning workplace safety by government agencies)
Cultural iatrogenesis
takes place the knowledge and abilities of the medical community are extolled or mythologised to the point where the patient receives no credit for their role in recovery… all credit goes to doctor
“Big Pharma”
term used to describe large pharmaceutical companies, that made enormous profit from developing, manufacturing, and marketing drugs (ex. Mylan’s EpiPen and price increase in the US)
Medical Sociology, “Race”, and Ethnicity
- immigrant doctors’ credentials are often considered insufficient
- Brain Drain: the mass emigration of educated professionals- erodes healthcare system of immigrant doctors place of origin
what does it mean when a disease is racialized:
when it is strongly associated with people of a particular racial or ethnic background (people of this background are then treated negatively
- ex. covid and the chinese
Female Doctors are MORE likely to…
- Enter family medicine
- Leave the profession sooner
- Work fewer hours and see fewer patients
Female doctors are LESS likely to…
- Become surgeons
- Be sued for malpractice
- Join professional organizations
Dr. Julian Tudor Hart
(1927-2018)
- introduced the idea of the inverse care law
Inverse care law:
The availability of good medical care tends to vary inversely with the need for it in the population served
- in poor areas, where need is often highest, we are more likely to see Dr. shortages, overworked Drs, and obsolete facilities and equipment
Disability
a physical or mental condition that limits a persons movements, senses or conditions
- 10 different types of disabilities: Hearing, seeing, mobility, flexibility, dexterity, pain, learning, memory, developmental disabilities, mental health
Social Constructionist models
the idea that any human social category- race, gender, ability, and so on- is not a totally natural category, but has an important social component (aims for substantive equality rather than formal equality)
substantive equality
building modifications that guarantee people with natural impairments equal accessibility
formal equality model
everyone faces and must adapt to the same socially driven architecture that gives advantages to non-disabled people
Policy Sociology:
A type of sociology that uses sociological research and data to produce social change, especially through government or corporate policy
Critical Sociology:
A type of sociology that challenges both established sociological theories and the research that sociologists do
Structural-functionalist:
An approach that views society as being like a human body, made up of different structures, with each having a vital function in ensuring the survival of the whole body
Reductionist:
denoting any unrealistic statement or theory that attempts to explain a set of phenomena by referring to a single cause
- includes class reductionism: reducing all inequality to gender, race, or ethnicity
Cultures of Medicine
the recognition that different cultures have different ways of practising medicine, including different social courses of disease, different techniques, and different physical remedies
Commodification:
the tendency to treat something as though it were an object to be bought or sold (in medicine it involves identifying certain conditions that might be normal and treating them with “commodity cures”)
