Brainscape's Knowledge GenomeTM

Browse over 1 million classes created by top students, professors, publishers, and experts.


See full index

YEAR 1 - Medical Sociology > Population Health 1: Introduction to Medical Sociology > Flashcards

Population Health 1: Introduction to Medical Sociology Flashcards

You may prefer our related Brainscape-certified flashcards:
USMLE® Step 1 flashcards Sociology 101 flashcards
1
Q

Define sociology.

A
  • Concerned with understanding society and social causes and consequences of human behaviour
  • E.g. Family and family relationships; inequalities; gender; race; organization
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

Define medicine.

A

Science, art or practice of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness or injury.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

Define medical sociology.

A
  • Concerned with social causes and consequences of health and disease
  • Brings sociological perspective to health, disease, illness and health care
  • Aims to understand social processes and issues that shape medicine, health care, health, disease, illness, disability etc.
  • E.g. Social behaviours of patients, the patient’s family and health care providers; health inequalities; patterns of health care utilization; health policy…
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

Define healthcare.

A
  • Set of medical services provided to individuals or a community that is organised by a country or organisation (e.g. NHS)
  • Provided by trained and licensed professionals
  • Includes:
    • Treatment and support of people with physical and mental illness/disease or disabilities
    • Prevention of disease (maintenance of health and well-being)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

Is social care part of health care?

A

In some countries, but not in the UK. Social care services in the UK are provided by local authorities.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

Define health.

A

“A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”

(WHO definition since since 1948)

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

Define disease.

A
  • Pathological process, most often physical (e.g. throat infection), sometimes undetermined in origin (e.g. schizophrenia)
  • Deviation from biological norm

(Marinker, 1975)

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

Define illness.

A

Feeling or experience of unhealth which is entirely personal, interior to the person or the patient

(Marinker, 1975)

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

Compare the definitions of disease and illness.

A

Disease is the physical manifestation and mental presentation, while illness is the feeling of unhealth which personal to the patient.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

Define disability.

A
  • Physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term negative effect on a person’s ability to do normal daily activities
  • Status that is recognised, supported and protected by society

(Equality Act 2010)

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

Name the three main models of health and illness.

A
  • Medical model
  • Patient-centred model
  • (Biopsycho)social model

Others:

  • Salutogenic model
  • Ecosystem health model
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

Explain the medical model of health and illness.

A
  • Assumes that the physician is the dominant health care professional (without much patient input)
  • States that medicine is responsible for treatment and cure of disease
    • Disease is characterised by deviations from the norm of measurable variables
    • Disease has single cause (e.g. bacteria)
    • People are not responsible for disease/illness
    • Disease can be objectively diagnosed and classified
  • Was the dominant view in the 19th Century Western society
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

Who critisised the medical model of health and illness? What did he propose instead?

A
  • George Engel
  • Proposed the biopsychosocial model
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

Name some of the criticisms of the medical model of health and illness.

A
  • Assumes disease to be fully accounted for by deviations from the norm of measurable variables, without leaving room for the social, psychological and behavioural dimensions of illness.
  • This leads to the biopsychosocial model as a better model (as proposed by Engel).
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

Explain the biopsychosocial model of health and illness.

A
  • Biological, psychological and social factors all play a role in health and illness
  • Health and illness have many causes
  • People’s behaviour influences health
  • Health and illness are on a continuum
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

Explain the patient-centred model of health and illness.

A
  • “Providing care that is respectful of, and responsive to, individual patient preferences, needs and values, and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions.”
  • Picker’s 8 principles of patient-centred care:
    • Respect for patients’ preferences
    • Integration of care
    • Education
    • Physical comfort
    • Emotional support
    • Involvement of family and friends
    • Continuity and transition of care
    • Access to care
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
17
Q

Give some examples of society promoting health.

A
  • Health campaigns by government and public health, or charities
  • Infrastructure
    • Green/blue spaces
    • Changes for health promotion
    • Social support
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
18
Q

Give some examples of society making people unhealthy.

A
  • Promoting sedentary lifestyle with junk food
  • Stress affecting people
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
19
Q

Explain the salutogenic model and ecosystem health models of health and illness.

A

Salutogenic model:

  • How and why do people stay well
  • Emphasis on relationship between stressors, coping and health

Ecosystem health:

  • Humanity is part of an environment that changes with human activity (e.g. land use, climate change, population growth)
  • Changes disrupt natural regulation of biosphere
  • Changes have impact on people, wildlife, oceans, animals, forests etc.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
20
Q

Give some examples of cahnges in society towards health.

A
  • Tobacco advertising
  • Sugary drinks
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
21
Q

What are the two main indicators of health status of a population?

A
  • Mortality
  • Morbidity

These can be for the overall population or by population group (e.g. by gender)

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
22
Q

Define mortality and morbidity.

A
  • Mortality - Measures of death
  • Morbidity - Measures of illness, illness and disability (not necessarily related to death)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
23
Q

What are some important statistic types related to mortality?

A
  • Death rate by year
  • Age standardised mortality rate
  • Death rate by group (e.g. age, gender, ethnicity)
  • Life expectancy
24
Q

What are some variables assessed with relation to morbidity?

A
  • Incidence
  • Prevalence
  • Years lived with disability

Other measures:

  • Symptom severity
  • Health impact
  • Health-related quality of life
25
Q

What are some roles of medicine and health care?

A
  • Improve health of people and society
  • Support patients and their families
  • Educate and inform
  • Provide positive experiences of care
  • Achieve good outcomes for patients

Also:

  • Aim to make medicine evidence based
  • Deliver patient-centred care
26
Q

How is mortality amendable to (due to) health care changing?

A
  • Rate of death for causes amendable to health care are reducing
  • Fallen more quickly than all cause mortality
27
Q

How does use of health services differ between men and women? Why is this?

A
  • Women use health services more often than men, even when excluding for maternity
  • Possible explanations:
    • Women have higher levels of illness
    • Women have higher awareness of their bodily discomforts
    • Women are more likely to report disease
28
Q

What is the clinical iceberg?

A
  • The concept that not all of illness and disease is seen by the health care systm because not everyone goes to the doctor with their illness
  • It makes it difficult to estimate true levels of disease and produce preventative strategies
29
Q

What is iatrogenesis?

A
  • The adverse effects of health care on the patient
  • From the Greek for “brought forth by the healer”
  • For example, blood letting in the past
  • Concept broadened by 20th Century social critic Illich
30
Q

Describe the different types of iatrogenesis and state who proposed them.

A
  • Clinical
    • Medical treatment that makes the patient worse
    • e.g. MRSA infection in hospital
  • Social
    • Medicine expands into more areas and creates an artificial demand for services
    • e.g. Heroin addiction being seen as a medical problem
  • Cultural
    • Ability to cope with illness and death is eroded progressively
    • Overreliance on medicine to solve problems and an associated decrease in autonomy
    • e.g. Over-medicalisation of society where doctor may assume role of priest with social problems entering into medicine

Proposed by Illich (1975).

31
Q

Give a general definition of social class.

A
  • Category or group of people who have approximately the same amount of wealth, status and power
  • Hierarchical pattern that constitutes a layered system of socially stratified humans
  • Pattern of inequality
32
Q

Describe briefly Karl Marx’s ideas about class.

A
  • German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian and revolutionary
  • Broadly, society has two classes:
    • Bourgeoisie
      • Owners of the means of production including factories, businesses, and equipment needed to produce wealth
      • Bourgeoisie – ‘middle class’
      • Petty (or Petite) Bourgeoisie – ‘smaller capitalists’
    • Proletariat
      • The propertyless workers
      • Proletariat - workers engaged in industrial production whose main income was derived from the sale of their labour power
      • Lumpenproletariat - lowest stratum of the industrial working class, including ‘undesirables’ such as tramps and criminal
33
Q

Describe briefly Max Weber’s ideas about social class.

A
  • German social theorist
  • Took issue with Marx’s view of social class as owning property only partly determines social class
  • Social class also determined by:
    • Power and prestige
    • Status groups i.e. individuals who share similar lifestyles and are awarded similar amount of social honour by society
  • Classification:
    • Property owning class
    • Intellectual, administrative and managerial class
    • Petty bourgeoisie
    • Working class
34
Q

Describe the distribution of wealth in the UK.

A
35
Q

What are the two classifications of social class you need to know about?

A
  • Registrar General occupational classification
  • Office National Statistics Socio-economic classification
36
Q

Describe the two classifications of social class.

A
37
Q

The Registrar General occuptional classification of social class did not really take into account women. What was the proposed response to this?

A
  • Oldmanand Illsey (1966) proposed these occuptional groups:
    1. Professional and technical (e.g. nurses, teachers)
    2. Clerical (e.g. secretaries, typists, receptionist)
    3. Distributive (e.g. shop assistants, hairdressers)
    4. Skilled manual (e.g. spinners, weavers, mill workers)
    5. Semi-skilled manual (e.g. food packers, domestic servants, semi-skilled textile workers)
    6. Unskilled manual (e.g. cleaners, kitchen workers, farm workers)
    7. Fish workers
  • Compared ranking of male (RG classification) with the female social class
  • More marriages within the same social class groups, suggesting that the classification worked
38
Q

What are some measures of social class?

A
  • Socioeconomic status:
    • Social standing of an individual or a group
    • Measured as combination of education, income and occupation
  • Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD):
    • Measure of deprivation for small areas in England
      • 7 domains of deprivation:
        • Income
        • Employment
        • Education, skills and training
        • Health and disability
        • Crime
        • Barriers to housing and services
        • Living environment
39
Q

What are some group differences that may create health inequalities?

A
  • Social class / socioeconomic status
  • Gender
  • Sexuality
  • Ethnicity
  • Wealth
  • Education
  • Age
  • Disability
40
Q

What is the strongest and most consistent predictor of a person’s health and life expectancy world wide?

A

Social class / socioeconomic status

41
Q

Draw a graph to show how DLFE (disability-free life expectancy) varies between the social classes.

A
42
Q

Compare the life expectancies and healthy life expectancies in the most and least deprived areas of the UK.

A
  • Difference in life expectancy in most and least deprived areas:
    • 9.2 years for men
    • 7.0 years for wome
  • Difference in healthy life expectancy in most and least deprived areas
    • 18.9 years for men
    • 19.6 years for women
43
Q

What are some of the key reports and studies about social class influencing health?

A
  • Edwin Chadwick
    • Sanitary condition of the labouring population, 1842
  • Sir Douglas Black
    • Inequalities in Health, 1980
  • Donald Acheson
    • Independent Enquiry into Inequalities in Health, 1998
  • Michael Marmot
    • Whitehall study I (1978) and study II (late 1980s/early 1990s)
44
Q

Describe the Chadwick report. [EXTRA]

A
45
Q

Describe the findings of the Black report.

A
46
Q

What were some explanations for the findings of the Black report? What reccomendations came from it?

A
47
Q

Describe the Acheson report.

A
48
Q

Describe the Whitehall studies.

A
49
Q

Name a study showing a realtionship between employment grade and physical functioning.

A
50
Q

What is ‘status syndrome’ and who described it?

A

Described by Marmot in 2004:

  • Health inequalities cannot be explained solely by poverty or ‘traditional risk factors’ (i.e. genetics, health behaviours, or access to medical care)
  • Low control over life and social disengagement are most powerful predictors for social gradient of health
  • Social gradient
51
Q

Give an example of a social gradient.

A
52
Q

Give some strategies for reducing inequalities between social classes.

A
  • Better health and medical care improve health of population overall but social class differences remain
  • Health and medical care cannot counter health inequalities on their own
  • So wider social policies are needed:
    • WHO (2008) Closing the Gap in a Generation
      • Aims to advance health equity (i.e. fair opportunity for everyone to achieve best possible health) through actions on social determinants of health
      • Improve daily living conditions
      • Tackle inequitable distribution of power, money and resources
      • Measure and understand the problem and assess the impact of action
53
Q

What are the Chief Medical Officers tips for better health (Department of Health, 1999)?

A
  1. Don’t smoke. If you can, stop. If you can’t, cut down.
  2. Follow a balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables.
  3. Keep physically active.
  4. Manage stress by, for example, talking things through and making time to relax.
  5. If you drink alcohol, do so in moderation.
  6. Cover up in the sun, and protect children from sunburn.
  7. Practise safe sex.
  8. Take up on cancer screening.
  9. Be safe on the roads: follow the Highway Code.
  10. Learn First Aid ABC: airways, breathing and circulation
54
Q

How does green space affect health?

A
55
Q
A

YEAR 1 - Medical Sociology (1 decks)

Brainscape helps you reach your goals faster, through stronger study habits.
© 2024 Bold Learning Solutions. Terms and Conditions