Midterm Flashcards
How is health viewed as a social construct?
We all have ideas about what health is, based on our experiences, our culture, our social, political and historical context
What are social determinants of health?
social factors that play a vital role in shaping our health status (age, gender, race, socioeconomic status?
Contrast the sociological understanding of health and wellness with a biomedical perspective of health
Sociological perspective: health is a social construction and has many different definitions. Many social factors influence one’s health and health is more than the absence of disease.
Biological: health is the absence of disease and one’s own genetics and biology explain the reasons for illness
Structural functionalist paradigm and how it applies in understanding health and illness
- Views society as a harmonious social system made up of a number of interconnected parts or institutions that function to maintain order and stability
- investigates how large-scale social structures and institutions work together to pattern human behaviour
Conflict paradigm and how it applies in understanding health and illness
- Capitalist society is composed of a number of competing interest groups in a constant power struggle with one another
- Focuses attention on the political economy of health and social inequalities in the distribution of illness and access to health-care services
symbolic interactionalist paradigm and how it applies in understanding health and illness
- focuses on the “interaction” of individuals who produce the construct of society
- Views society as a socially constructed product of everyday interactions of individuals
- Behaviour is a response or reaction to other individuals or physical settings
- Health and illness cannot be viewed separately from the cultural context in which we live
- Medical knowledge is socially constructed and not objective and fallible
Four aspects of the sick role
Rights:
- You are exempt from responsibility for illness
- You are temporarily exempt from regular role responsibilities
Responsibilities:
- try and get well to resume responsibilities
- seek technically competent help and cooperate in the process of getting well
Define and explain the feminist paradigm in relation to patriarchy. Why is the feminist paradigm important to use?
- Societal relations are gendered and unequal
- Gendered social roles contribute to health inequalities between men and women
- Women continue to experience higher morbidity rates, perhaps due to the medicalization of women’s lives
- Biology doesn’t explain all of the health differences between men and women
What is embodiment in the sociology of the body paradigm in understanding health and illness?
Society shapes the body and the body shapes society, health is seen as how individuals perceive their body and bodily experiences
Why is it necessary to adopt a life course perspective in the analysis of disparities in health?
- A person’s early life experiences have the potential to shape health across an entire lifetime and across generations
- Experiences in one’s past may be the reason for the onset of chronic illness later in life, which is why it is important to study the factors that may cause this in order to prevent further morbidity
Compare between good health (wellness) and ill health (sickness)
Good health: a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity
Wellness: An inclusive concept that incorporates not only good health but also quality of life and satisfaction with general living conditions
Ill health: A subjective, psychosocial phenomenon in which individuals perceive themselves as not feeling well and engage in different types of behavior in an effort to overcome their ill health
Sickness: A concept that includes both the presence of disease and the experience of illness
What is the difference between the presence of disease and the experience of illness? Why is illness a subjective experience?
- Illness is subjective; a person can feel ill without actually being sick
- to be diseased a person must actually have a disease in addition to feeling ill
- Illness is subjective as its symptoms cannot be measured and therefore there cannot be a requirement to be “ill”
Define and explain a population health approach in comparison to a biomedical approach
- Population health: has a focus on the community/social level factors that influence health and inequities between population groups
- Biomedical approach: focused solely on biological explanations for sickness/sickness and excludes all other factors such as environment and social influences
What is the focus of the salutogenic model of health?
A conceptual model introduced by Antonovsky to provide a guide for identifying and understanding salutary factors that make populations healthy
What is Health Promotion?
A state-sponsored process aimed at getting individuals to take control over and improve their health by providing them with health-related education and information
