Definitions of Health

Question 1

What does the biomedical model say?

Answer 1

Health and illness are caused by factors within the body

Question 2

3 key characteristics of the biomedical model

Answer 2

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.

Question 3

What is the biomedical view of disability?

Answer 3

• Looks in at the patient and tries to fix the disability through medical practice
• Interventionist - something that’s done to the patient

Question 4

What are 5 criticisms of the biomedical model?

Answer 4

• 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

Question 5

What did McKeown (1976) argue about the biomedical model?

Answer 5

Improved nutrition and hyigene have been more important to improving health than medical developments

Question 6

What do Marxist sociologists argue about biomedicine?

Answer 6

Ignores real causes of illness - social causes

Question 7

What is a criticism of what the biomedical approach does?

Answer 7

Can be viewed as stigmatising people with illnesses/disability - views illness/disability as something abnormal that should be fixed

Question 8

What did Shakespeare (2000) say about the biomedical approach?

Answer 8

• Individualises and medicalises disability

- Deal with symptoms of each case and ignore social patterns

Question 9

What does Illich (1975) argue?

Answer 9

Modern medicine creates disease

Question 10

What does Illich (1975) define health as?

Answer 10

The capacity to cope with the human reality of death, pain, and sickness

Question 11

What does Illich believe about medicine?

Answer 11

• 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

Question 12

What is iatrogenesis outlined by Illich?

Answer 12

Illness caused by modern medicine

Question 13

What are the 3 types of iatrogenesis?

Answer 13

1) Clinical
2) Social
3) Cultural

Question 14

What is clinical iatrogenesis?

Answer 14

Harm done to patients by ineffective or unsafe treatments, or getting the wrong diagnosis

Question 15

What is social iatrogenesis

Answer 15

• 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

Question 16

What is cultural iatrogenesis?

Answer 16

Destruction of traditional ways of dealing with and making sense of death/pain/sickness

Question 17

What is the medicalisation of social life?

Answer 17

More and more people’s problems being seen as suitable for medical intervention

Question 18

What did Illich say about dying?

Answer 18

• Has become form of consumer resistance (can’t consume things when dead)
• Death no longer seen as normal and is now a taboo

Question 19

What does the social model say?

Answer 19

Health and illness are caused by factors outside the body

Question 20

What happens with illness in modern society?

Answer 20

Illness is only recognised as serious if it is diagnosed by the medical elite.

Question 21

What does the social model say about definitions of health and illness?

Answer 21

Definitions of health and illness are social constructs - not actually always related to physical symptoms

Question 22

What is a social construct?

Answer 22

An idea created by society - as opposed to an idea that’s based on objective and testable facts
Specific to values/behaviour of society

Question 23

What does the social model of health look at?

Answer 23

Looks to see which environmental, social (diet/housing/stress), or behavioural factors have contributed to make someone ill.

Question 24

What is a social view of disability?

Answer 24

• 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

Question 25

What are 2 criticisms of the social model?

Answer 25

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

Question 26

What is an impairment as opposed to disability?

Answer 26

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.

Question 27

How is the body a social construction?

Answer 27

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