Lay Health Beliefs and Health Seeking Behaviour (Sociology)

Question 1

Sociology’s contribution to lay health beliefs and health seeking behaviour?

Answer 1

• Understanding the socio-cultural meanings underpinning the experience and understanding of illness

-Lay individuals are NOT passive recipients of health information

• Their understanding is shaped by social and cultural rules which give meaning to the way they live their lives
• Engagement with health behaviours is often shaped my social/material circumstances

Question 2

Health as a functional capacity

Answer 2

Health is the ability to fulfil work and social roles e.g. never taking sick days (more common within the working classes)

Can mean absence of illness OR health in spite of disease

Question 3

Disease Candidacy Model

Answer 3

Developed to account for lack of engagement/compliance with health prevention strategies

Reflects how lay persons internalise and contextually health info

Involves retrospective assessment of disease candidates - judgments regarding individuals propensity to disease e.g. x was likely to develop y because he smoked

Teleological explanation: Illness/disease occurs due to a deeper purpose or meaning that surpasses conventional logic