Definitions of Health Flashcards
What does the biomedical model say?
Health and illness are caused by factors within the body
3 key characteristics of the biomedical model
1) Health is seen as the absence of biological abnormality
2) The human body is likened to a machine in that it needs to be repaired by treatment when it breaks down
3) The health of society is regarded as dependent on the state of medical knowledge.
What is the biomedical view of disability?
- Looks in at the patient and tries to fix the disability through medical practice
- Interventionist - something that’s done to the patient
What are 5 criticisms of the biomedical model?
- improved nutrition + hygiene better for health than medical developments
- biomedicine distracts attention from real causes of illness (social causes)
- biomedical approach can stigmatise people with illness/disability, viewing it as abnormal and something to be fixed
- Traditional approaches individualise and medicalise disability, ignoring social patterns
- Modern medicine creates disease
What did McKeown (1976) argue about the biomedical model?
Improved nutrition and hyigene have been more important to improving health than medical developments
What do Marxist sociologists argue about biomedicine?
Ignores real causes of illness - social causes
What is a criticism of what the biomedical approach does?
Can be viewed as stigmatising people with illnesses/disability - views illness/disability as something abnormal that should be fixed
What did Shakespeare (2000) say about the biomedical approach?
- Individualises and medicalises disability
- Deal with symptoms of each case and ignore social patterns
What does Illich (1975) argue?
Modern medicine creates disease
What does Illich (1975) define health as?
The capacity to cope with the human reality of death, pain, and sickness
What does Illich believe about medicine?
- It has gone too far
- Medical elite (doctors) are trying to “play God” by trying to wipe out death/sickness
- Trying to control illness turns people into consumers, ruining people’s natural capacity for health and making people ill
What is iatrogenesis outlined by Illich?
Illness caused by modern medicine
What are the 3 types of iatrogenesis?
1) Clinical
2) Social
3) Cultural
What is clinical iatrogenesis?
Harm done to patients by ineffective or unsafe treatments, or getting the wrong diagnosis
What is social iatrogenesis
- Idea that doctors have taken over control of people’s lives
- Individuals can’t make decisions about their problems
- More and more problems seen as suitable for medical intervention - medicalisation of social life
What is cultural iatrogenesis?
Destruction of traditional ways of dealing with and making sense of death/pain/sickness
What is the medicalisation of social life?
More and more people’s problems being seen as suitable for medical intervention
What did Illich say about dying?
- Has become form of consumer resistance (can’t consume things when dead)
- Death no longer seen as normal and is now a taboo
What does the social model say?
Health and illness are caused by factors outside the body
What happens with illness in modern society?
Illness is only recognised as serious if it is diagnosed by the medical elite.
What does the social model say about definitions of health and illness?
Definitions of health and illness are social constructs - not actually always related to physical symptoms
What is a social construct?
An idea created by society - as opposed to an idea that’s based on objective and testable facts
Specific to values/behaviour of society
What does the social model of health look at?
Looks to see which environmental, social (diet/housing/stress), or behavioural factors have contributed to make someone ill.
What is a social view of disability?
- Looks outwards from the individual to environmental and social factors which disable an individual e.g lack of access/rights
- Person using a wheelchair might feel more disabled by lack of a wheelchair ramp than the fact they can’t use their legs to walk
What are 2 criticisms of the social model?
1) Illness is not often subjective, and isn’t affected by changes in the social environment
2) Ignores impairment, such as pain, which causes the disability
What is an impairment as opposed to disability?
Physical feature/characteristic e.g blindness whereas disability is n inability to do something because society hasn’t made a provision for it. Impairments don’t cause disability but disability always due to impairment.
How is the body a social construction?
1) Ideal body size/shape socially constructed - currently slim ideal for woman and muscular ideal for man. Being thin in past was associated with poverty.
2) Typical body shape is result of dominant cultural attitudes to diet/lifestyle e.g US fast food culture is linked to increase obesity.
3) However ideal body isn’t just construction - high BMI linked to increase risk of diseases
