Sociology · Sociology Themes and Perspectives (Haralambos and Holborn)

Chapter 5 : Health, medicine and the body

Table of contents100 sections

1.Health, medicine and the body
2.Introduction
3.Defining health and illness
4.Disease and illness
5.Definitions of health and their significance for policy
6.Key Terms
7.📌 Exam Tidbits
8.Theoretical approaches to illness
9.The functionalist perspective
10.The political economy perspective
11.Postmodern approaches to health
12.Interactionist perspectives on health and illness
13.Feminist and gender-based approaches to health
14.Postmodernism and the writings of Foucault
15.Key Terms
16.📌 Exam Tidbits
17.Models of health
18.The biomedical model
19.History as progress
20.Changing relationships
21.Criticisms of the biomedical model
22.Key Terms
23.📌 Exam Tidbits
24.Medicalisation
25.Ivan Illich - Limits to Medicine
26.Marxist approaches to medicalisation
27.Ehrenreich and English: feminism and medicalisation
28.Conrad and Schneider - Deviance and Medicalization
29.Lay demand for medicalisation
30.Pharmaceuticalisation
31.Key Terms
32.📌 Exam Tidbits
33.Professions and power in medicine
34.Millerson: the traits of a profession
35.Criticism of functionalist approaches
36.Friedson: a 'Weberian' view of the professions
37.Bryan S. Turner - Medical Power and Social Knowledge
38.Occupational strategies and gender: a feminist approach
39.Challenges to the dominance of doctors
40.A Marxist view of the professions in medicine
41.Key Terms
42.📌 Exam Tidbits
43.Complementary or alternative medicine
44.Explaining the resurgence of complementary/alternative medicine
45.Conclusion
46.Key Terms
47.📌 Exam Tidbits
48.Inequalities of health
49.Measuring health
50.Health inequalities
51.Explanations for health inequalities by social class
52.Health inequalities and socioeconomic status
53.Explanations for health inequalities
54.Gender and health inequalities
55.Ethnicity and health
56.Health and place
57.Beyond class, gender and ethnicity: the emergence of social capital
58.Approaching ethnicity, gender, place and health: intersectionality
59.Conclusion
60.Key Terms
61.📌 Exam Tidbits
62.The body
63.Michel Foucault - The Birth of the Clinic
64.Bryan Turner - Regulating Bodies
65.The impact of society on the body
66.The body, sex and gender
67.The body and consumption
68.The body as a project
69.The reality of the body
70.Key Terms
71.📌 Exam Tidbits
72.Disability
73.Oliver: a social model of disability
74.Capitalism and disability
75.Criticisms of the Marxist approach
76.Bourdieu: power and physical capital
77.The postmodern contribution to understanding disability
78.Key Terms
79.📌 Exam Tidbits
80.Illness, blame and stigma
81.Erving Goffman - Stigma
82.Stigma and mental illness
83.Criticism of the concept of stigma
84.Key Terms
85.📌 Exam Tidbits
86.Mental illness
87.Mental illness as a social construction
88.Structural explanations for mental illness
89.Key Terms
90.📌 Exam Tidbits
91.Death and dying
92.Death and dying in contemporary society
93.Glaser and Strauss: negotiating death
94.Sudnow and the management of death
95.Lawton and the unbounded body
96.Conclusion
97.Summary and conclusions
98.Key Terms
99.📌 Exam Tidbits
100.Quick-Recall Box

Chapter preview

Health, medicine and the body

Introduction

The World Health Organization (1974) defines health as "not merely the absence of disease, but a state of complete physical, mental, spiritual and social well-being."
Illness is typically viewed as a physical experience beyond personal control, but sociology reveals a crucial social dimension → health, illness, and concepts of the "normal" body vary across times and cultures.
The dominant biomedical model of health views the body as a machine requiring maintenance. This model underpins most global health systems, including the National Health Service (NHS) in Britain, and secures the power and status of doctors.
Sociologists criticise the biomedical model, noting that illness and death rates declined before modern medical techniques were introduced → living conditions are seen as more important than medicine in combating disease.
Medicalisation is the process by which increasing areas of social life fall under the remit of doctors.
Health statistics show illness is not randomly distributed but closely related to social class, and to a lesser extent, gender and "race".
The body itself is analysed as a social object shaped by medicine over time.
Disability and mental illness are explored as socially constructed categories carrying moral attributes and social stigma.
Death is not a completely individual act; as shown in classic sociology (e.g., Durkheim's Suicide), it takes place within a social framework.

Defining health and illness

Definitions of health polarise between "objective/scientific" criteria used by the medical profession and subjective awareness used by ordinary people.

Concept	Definition
Traditional medical view	Health is the absence of disease. The body functions within normal boundaries; deviance from normality indicates illness or diseased organs.
World Health Organization (1974)	Health is "not merely an absence of disease, but a state of complete physical, mental, spiritual and social well-being."
Lay model of health	How ordinary people define health. Includes negative (absence of disease), positive (well-being), and functional definitions (ability to perform normal daily activities).

Mildred Blaxter (1983, 1990) conducted two studies (one of 9,000 people, one of socially disadvantaged families) finding people generally used a negative definition (absence of disease), but with demographic variations:
Poorer…

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Chapter 6 : Crime and deviance