Sociology of health and disease

• Sociology of Health and disease

  Relations between Society and Social institutions (Interdependency)
• Social institutions


  • Family
  • Social life
  • Economy
  • History
  • Social factors
• Poor Sanitation


  Spread of diseases
• Poor living conditions


  Fouled sewage systems
• Colonizer era


  Poor Sanitation
• Trading of goods


  Infectious disease
• Religious Crusades


  • Infectious disease
  • Population increase (travel to spread religion)
• HIV victims


  Punished for violating social norms
• Mental illness


  Usually sent to insane asylum
• Science and what is illness and what is not

  Society decides
• Poverty


  Little power over decisions
• Seeing the individual


  Apart from Society
• Sociology of health and disease

  Influences how people seek healthcare and equip solutions
• Biomedical


  Biological cause for diseases
• Theory


  • Hypothesis
  • Making sense of the world around us
  • Giving reasons and explanations
  • Predictions to be tested for accuracy
• Inequalities in health care
• Disadvantaged social backgrounds tend to get ill more easily
• Social Constructions


  Perceptions of health based on appearances and physical health
• Fitness and Healthy levels


  How we interpret and their living conditions and unhealthy behaviours
• Stereotypical beliefs about patients

  Limit relationship with individual's perception
• Lifestyle choices and health behaviours

  Impacts perceptions of health
• Perceptions of health


  Degree of support provided to others/patients
• Accuracy of health perceptions depends on gender, age, cultural background, level of education
• Lower socioeconomic background leads to poorer health outcomes
• High blood pressure


  • Less control
  • Less money to invest in health
  • Less access to healthcare
• Geographic locations


  Rural and remote areas have less recreational facilities and less opportunity to consult medical practitioners
• Construction of health and illness

  A social process
• Stages of seeking medical care

  1. Symptom experienced

  2. Person decides to seek help

  3. Takes on 'sick role'

  4. Professional medical label

  5. Treatment carried out

  6. Relinquishes 'sick role'
• Reasons for rejecting 'sick role' - breadwinners
• Importance of giving up 'sick role' - disrupts social system, shortage of healthcare workers, productivity levels increase
• Criticisms of 'sick role' - seen as weakness, others do not accept it
• Stigma


  Negative evaluations applied by society to people with certain illnesses
• Types of stigma


  • Visible features
  • Discreditable (below surface)
• Stigma leads to myths and shunning of people with certain illnesses
• Fear of stigma (loss of jobs etc.) prevents people from revealing their illness
• Role of social workers

  • Help family cope and understand patient's condition
  • Provide emotional, financial and social support
  • More humane than doctors
• Areas social workers deal with

  • Hypertension
  • Diabetes
  • Spinal injuries
  • Cardiac heart disease
  • Disabilities
  • Maternal issues
  • Life threatening/poor prognosis conditions
• Social workers help with patients' illness narratives to understand their view of illness