Health and Aging

Question 1

Sociological Perspective on Health

Answer 1

• health, illness, aging and dying are socially constructed and structured by class, gender, race, immigrant status ..
• positive relationships between socioeconomic status and health
• hierarchy stress perspective - we compare ourselves to others and when we think they are doing better than us we stress = impacts health

Question 2

Gender and Health

Answer 2

• women have longer life expectancy but higher morbidity
• high income men live longer than ow income women
• aging = issue of common concern to women
• women: greater disease/disability and diagnosis
• men: greater suicide rate and mental illness
• indigenous groups have overall worse health

Question 3

Race and Health

Answer 3

• aboriginals: poor health care
• immigrants experiencing poor health care
• they have greater health when they arrive but it then decreases
• downward social mobility

Question 4

Age and Health

Answer 4

• Physical health declines but older individuals have greater psychological well being
• Compression of morbidity thesis: more of us are experiencing more years of disability free good health
  
  • onset of disability is deleted

Question 5

Sociological Perspective on Health and Aging

Answer 5

• Importance of social support, social stigma, social and public policy
• people used to die at home, now death is more private and invisible
• Stigma impacts treatment and social policy
• ageism: more prominent in women

Question 6

Healthcare

Answer 6

• socially constructed
• Medicalization: overtime conditions get defined as medical conditions
• globalization, privatization and profitization
• Epidemic of diagnoses = medicalization process

Question 7

Contemporary Trends

Answer 7

• Privatization: profit or non
• Profitization
• Patient activism
• Alternative medicine
• Holistic medicine

Question 8

Structural Functionalism

Answer 8

• Emile Durkheim (suicide): connects it to how much an individual is connected to society
• Talcott parsons: sick role
• How we maintain social order, society equilibrium, social solidarity
• All of us have certain roles in society
• Medicine = social control function
• allows people to be socially accepted while sick
• sick person’s inability to contribute to society = form of deviance

Question 9

Symbolic Interactionism

Answer 9

• Charmaz: Good days, bad days
• bad days: chronic illness symptoms increase
• how does chronic illness shape identity
• TIME: they focus on time and relate to it very differently
• Rosenhand: being sane in insane places
• labels: some stick - stigma

Question 10

Conflict Theory

Answer 10

• impact quality of life, kind of healthcare received, infant mortality, access to healthcare, preventative healthcare
• SES related to: physical and mental health
• there is always relationship b/w SES and health
• social class has important role in health
• higher class: can afford to work non dangerous jobs and better healthcare

Question 11

Differential exposure hypothesis:

Answer 11

• stress due to unpaid labour

Question 12

Differential vulnerability hypothesis:

Answer 12

• women have less power, status and resources

Question 13

Feminist Theory

Answer 13

• critique of medicalized childbirth
• losing control over body, takes away empowerment
• social, psychological and spiritual aspects
• healthcare professionals take empowerment away
• focus on the unborn baby rather than woman’s emotional well being

Question 14

Postpartum Depression

Answer 14

• more medical intervention = more depression
• women educated that mothering is a private thing
• little to no help by nurses in hospital - social support is needed
• critique: absence of medical intervention did not decrease postpartum depression

Question 15

Rosenberg

Answer 15

• challenges medical model - argues postpartum depression caused by social organization of mother work
• Factors associated in postpartum depression:
  
  • loss
  • dependence
  • isolation
  • social support
• must increase social support to new parents