CPH - Sociology Flashcards
To be able to identify what constitutes the ‘social’ in biomedical practice?
Everything around the physiology - how societies relate to health, structure around what health is and how we maintain / restore / promote it Health outcomes as a product of society we live within Sociology and a social understanding highlight An understanding of lived experience of illness Explanations for social structuring of patterns of health and disease An understanding of health as more than the absence of illness
To be able to explain why differential health outcomes are social not biological phenomena
Impact of social structure / work / living conditions as a surrounding that moderates our health. Examples work environment on exposure and risk, socioeconomic status on ability to take time of work for care / recovery / diagnosis, housing and impact on ability to maintain hygiene standards / stay warm Mental health concerns associated with groups differently - gendered, racialised and socioeconmic determinants for how you are expected to deal with mental and physical health struggles
Achieve an understanding of the notion of risky health behaviour in the context of health promotion strategies
Risk is a social construct SO different people can relate to it and understand it differently To study risk, we simplify it (standard practice is quantifying risk, to determine ‘at risk’ groups) And then people assume causality and we focus too narrowly on the ‘cause’ ignoring the wider context BUT context is difficult to measure to determine ‘comprehensive risk exposure’ Best to look at absolute rather than relative risk
Assess the relative efficacy of socio-cultural theories of risk perception and ‘risky’ behaviour - what are the theories?
Social construction of risky behaviour The ‘risk society’ thesis
Outline the social changes in social interactions and relationships that are typically experienced over time by individuals following diagnosis of a chronic illness.
Secondary deviance - Impact on self-regard and participation Continuous circle between stigma, self-esteem and participation Secondary deviance in response to primary deviance (ie labelling)
Identify the ways in which a disease label impacts upon the everyday social life of a person living with a chronic illness
Crisis approach / labelling theory Primary deviance - Recognition that disease is deviance from norm
Outline the social trends in the incidence of chronic illness
Variation in experiences of different social classes - how is functionality affected? How are men and women affected differently?
Identify a range of lay health beliefs and discuss how these influence the help-seeking/illness behaviour of patient.
Am I going to seek help?
- What is normal?
- Social factors
- Values and beliefs
5 TRIGGERS TO SEEK HELP
Social - impact on social life
Work - impact on work life
Inter-personal - like divorce, death of loved one
Symptoms - have become unbearable or beyond what one considers tolerable
Sanction - pressure from loved one to seek help
What is the social construction of risky behaviour?
People try to make sense of risk and often simplify to all or nothing Risk can be subconscious or obvious Risk as social performance
What is the ‘risk society’ thesis?
Unintended consequences of progress mean that there is little / no control over the future (costs are now significantly larger than benefits Risk as category of understand to risk as category of fear - we now have an over-identification of risk
Describe in outline the key social trends accompanying ageing in Britain
Differs cross-culturally, some cultures respect age, some do not - it is all gendered, effected by race / class etc
Surrounded by assumptions about what aging and old mean for a person
Trends: Population is aging overall, beliefs about age means will shift over time
Outline the main dimensions of a sociological conception of aging
The key is looking at the SOCIAL CONTEXT in which people are aging - acknowledging this is not a homogenous group and social differences persist into old age
Ageism, widening ‘dependancy ration’ and social isolation all issues
Age and notions of time - biological and historical time need to be comsidered
Biological looks at the individual, historical looks at the cohort
Outline the social concept of the ‘life course’ as complimentary to biological constructs of ageing
Traditional view of life cycle looks at aging from progression from begining to end with set milestones throughout which is determinisitc
Life course concept acknowledges that life is not chronologically and biologically fixed and that individual agency, history, gender, etc all have impact
Made up of ‘life domains’ - which break life up into more tangible blocks ‘school years’ ‘ working life’ which acknowledge interruption. Life domains are fluid movements between trajectories (and participation in multiple trajectories at once) -
Trajectories - the extent to which individuals participate in social structures changes over time
Transitions - the beginning and end of each trajectory
