Social Sciences
Social Construction of Health and Illness
The social construction of health and illness refers to the idea that perceptions of health and illness are shaped by social, cultural, and historical factors. It emphasizes that what is considered healthy or pathological is not solely determined by biological or medical factors, but is also influenced by societal norms, values, and power dynamics. This perspective highlights the importance of understanding health and illness within broader social contexts.
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12 Key excerpts on "Social Construction of Health and Illness"
eBook - PDF- Ashley P. Duggan(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
The report poses particular implications for defining health. Specifically, defining and understanding health and illness involves two-way communication and listening. Additional information is likely needed and can likely produce additional insights when counterintuitive information emerges. the Social Construction of Health and Illness Social constructionism provides an important counterpoint to bio- logical medicine’s largely deterministic approaches to disease and illness. A social constructionist perspective on illness allows for recognizing the ways some illnesses are particularly embedded within a cultural meaning that can then shape how society responds to people and influences the experience of their illness (Conrad & Barker, 2010). The social construction of illness cannot be fully disentangled from biomedical markers but recognizes that symptoms of a social problem are not a “given” but conferred within a social context of how claims about behaviors and experi- ences are made and inferred (Conrad & Barker, 2010). Social con- struction of health and illness places the exploration of illness within the experience of daily social interaction, which can also be enacted and appropriated by people as they make sense of their illness and cope with, manage, and interact with physical and 42 the unique context of health and illness social restrictions (Conrad & Barker, 2010). Social construction of illness provides a broad understanding of how signs or symptoms get to be labeled or diagnosed as illness or disease based on social ideas about what are treated as valid medical categories and med- ical knowledge (Conrad & Barker, 2010). Viewing health and illness through the roots of a social con- structionist perspective contributes to understanding the social dimensions of illness and falls within the work of medical sociology and medical anthropology as well as interdisciplinary work.
eBook - PDF- Tonja R. Conerly, San Jacinto College, Kathleen Holmes, Northern Essex Community College, Asha Lal Tamang, North Hennepin Community College(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Openstax(Publisher)
This dynamic can affect how a patient seeks treatment and what kind of treatment they receive. The Social Construction of the Illness Experience The idea of the social construction of the illness experience is based on the concept of reality as a social construction. In other words, there is no objective reality; there are only our own perceptions of it. The social construction of the illness experience deals with such issues as the way some patients control the manner in which they reveal their diseases and the lifestyle adaptations patients develop to cope with their illnesses. In terms of constructing the illness experience, culture and individual personality both play a significant role. For some people, a long-term illness can have the effect of making their world smaller, more defined by the illness than anything else. For others, illness can be a chance for discovery, for re-imaging a new self (Conrad and Barker 2007). Culture plays a huge role in how an individual experiences illness. Widespread diseases like AIDS or breast cancer have specific cultural markers that have changed over the years and that govern how individuals—and society—view them. Today, many institutions of wellness acknowledge the degree to which individual perceptions shape the nature of health and illness. Regarding physical activity, for instance, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends that individuals use a standard level of exertion to assess their physical activity. This Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) gives a more complete view of an individual’s actual exertion level, since heartrate or pulse measurements may be affected by medication or other issues (Centers for Disease Control 2011a). Similarly, many medical professionals use a comparable scale for perceived pain to help determine pain management strategies. 19.1 • The Social Construction of Health 561
eBook - PDF- Chloe E. Bird, Peter Conrad, Allen M. Fremont, Stefan Timmermans, Chloe E. Bird, Peter Conrad, Allen M. Fremont, Stefan Timmermans(Authors)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- Vanderbilt University Press(Publisher)
Despite Parsons’s social conservatism, his theoretical claims were premised on the conceptual distinc-tion between the biophysical nature of disease and the social experience of sickness. Over the last fifty-plus years, medical sociologists have built on this distinction to make more radical and far-reaching claims concerning the social con-struction of illness and disease (Brumberg 2009; Conrad and Schneider 1992; Freidson 1971; Lorber and Moore 2002). Social constructionist scholars emphasize the relationship between ideas about illness and the expression, perception, understanding, and re-sponse to illness at the individual, institutional, and societal level. Historical and cross-cultural comparisons are effective ways to illustrate social constructionists’ claims. Imagine, for example, two societies: one defines illness principally as the outcome of moral failings or spiritual transgres-sions (on the part of individuals or communi-ties); the other defines illness principally as the result of organic disturbance within an individual human body. Who (or even what) is identified as “ill” in these two societies will differ dramatically, as will arrangements for how and by whom ill-ness is to be treated. In addition, the subjective experience and meaning of being ill will be mark-edly dissimilar because the two societies provide very different interpretive frameworks of the ill-ness experience. In one society, “the shamed” stand before a sacred figure who rights the wrong, cleanses the soul, or grants mercy; in the other, the individual victim of disease—“the patient”— seeks the physician’s technical skills to restore or fix his or her wounded body. Social constructionists also examine why some illnesses exist in one place and not another, or appear and then disappear in the same place. In many societies, for example, women do not suffer from premenstrual syndrome (PMS) or anorexia nervosa. Likewise, susto and koro are illnesses that exist only in certain cultures.
eBook - ePub- Darren Edwards, Stephanie Best, Darren Edwards, Stephanie Best(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
Chapter 1 Sociology of Health and Illness Ashley FrawleyOverview
This chapter introduces the sociology of health and illness, first by considering the meaning of the ‘sociological imagination’ and associated importance of the concept of context to understanding human social life. It then discusses three contexts of health: socio-economic, institutional/professional and cultural. Within these contexts a number of key issues in the sociology of health and illness are considered: the social determinants of health, health inequalities, challenges to medical authority, social construction and health panics, medicalisation and growing cultural preoccupations with health risks.Learning Outcomes
By the end of this chapter you will be able to:- Define the ‘sociological imagination’ and its relationship to the concept of context
- Discuss the relationship between socio-economic context and health inequalities
- Critically examine different explanations of health inequalities
- Discuss several developments argued to indicate the decline of medical authority
- Explain and apply theories of social construction and medicalisation to think critically about health risks and panics
Introduction
Health and illness may seem solely individual matters. However, sociologists draw attention to social patterns in health and illness, seeking to situate our experiences and beliefs within broader social, historical and cultural contexts. This chapter introduces key concepts from the sociology of health and illness, beginning with an exploration of the ‘sociological imagination’ and importance of ‘context’ to understanding human social life. First, we examine socio-economic contexts of health in relation to social determinants and health inequalities. The context of health care professions is then considered with attention to changing professional relationships as well as challenges to medical authority. Introducing social constructionism, the cultural context of health is explored with reference to medicalisation, moral panics and risk.
2 How is Health Constructed?It has so far been assumed that health is something which is essentially ‘factual’, existing ‘out there’, even though it is multifaceted and may be looked at from various directions, and its causes and correlates may wait to be discovered. Discussion now turns to another view: that health, like all other human concepts, is an idea constructed by human agency.Health as social construction
Medical philosophers have long pointed out that there is a sense in which even the concept of disease is an invention of humankind:All departments of nature below the level of mankind are exempt from both disease and from treatment … The blight that strikes at corn or at potatoes is a human invention, for if man wished to cultivate parasites (rather than potatoes or corn) there would no ‘blight’, but simply the presence of man in a meaningful relation with them … Outside the significances that man voluntarily attaches to certain conditions, there are no illnesses or diseases in nature … Out of his anthropocentric self-interest, man has chosen to consider as ‘illness’ or ‘diseases’ those natural circumstances which precipitate the death (or the failure to function according to certain values) of a limited number of biological species: for gain or pleasure … Children and cattle may fall ill, have diseases, and seem as sick: but who has ever imagined that spiders or lizards can be sick? … The medical enterprise is from its inception value-loaded; it is not simply an applied biology, but a biology applied in accordance with the dictates of social interest. (Sedgwick 1973: 20)This is an early representation in medicine of the position known as social constructivism, a major tradition of sociological thought which has had a profound influence in thinking about health. This proposes that reality is constructed through human action and does not exist independently of it. There is no suggestion that phenomena are not ‘real’ and do not exist without our seeing them and ascribing meaning to them. But it is only human social activity which constitutes them as, for instance, health or disease. The social body influences the way in which the physical body is perceived and experienced.
eBook - PDFMaking Sense of Illness
The Social Psychology of Health and Disease
- Alan Radley(Author)
- 1994(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
The point of making this distinction is to show that disease, illness and sickness do not stand in some kind of practical or theoretical vacuum. Instead, they have their independent meaning because they can be spoken about within different theoretical perspectives. At this stage of our discussion it is possible to see that, whatever the diagnostic and therapeutic power of medical knowledge, it cannot answer questions about illness and sickness, as we have been using these terms so far. This does not mean, of course, that medical knowledge and practice has no place in our account of health and illness. What it does mean is that the concepts of biomedicine cannot define the field of interest for a social science approach to the topic. Having said that, we shall see that what health professionals believe, and what they do, remain key to our understanding of illness experience and the social context of sickness. The relationship of health to illness It might be thought that health and illness are simply polar opposites, so that a person is either at one or other end of this dimension. In fact, this is not the case, as a brief analysis will demonstrate. Health refers to a state of being that is largely taken for granted. By this, I mean that being able to live one's life untroubled by pain or disease forms a background to everyday existence. Arguably, it is only when symptoms appear, or where a diagnosis of disease is made, that one's health is brought into question. Then it is the disease, the illness experience, the condition of being a sick person that we are aware of. And it is the shadow that this figure of illness casts upon the backcloth of health that gives the latter some shape in our consciousness. Only then do we know, at some remove as it were, what we have lost or what is at risk. Later on in the book I shall provide some evidence for these claims.
eBook - PDF- Craig Calhoun, Chris Rojek, Bryan S Turner, Craig Calhoun, Chris Rojek, Bryan S Turner(Authors)
- 2005(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
Different approaches to understanding the profession of medicine and health care orga-nizations and institutions demonstrate the theoretical struggle to understand changes in health care institutional dynamics over time (Turner, 1995; Williams, 2001). Health as a value The last fault-line centers on the symbolic meaning and value of health, for discussions of health and illness are ultimately based on assumptions about human worth. These assumptions and arguments about human worth have particular relevance to research and social policies towards vulnerable popula-tions like women and children, the elderly, the poor, the inadequately insured, disabled people and those with chronic and/or incapacitating THE SOCIOLOGY OF HEALTH AND ILLNESS 275 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF SOCIOLOGY illnesses. In practice, vulnerable populations generally share more than one of these charac-teristics, increasing their vulnerability and risk of poor health status, low quality of life and even death (Ayanian et al., 2000). While schol-ars agree that their research on health issues has serious implications for social policy, they often skirt direct examinations of the values, morality and ethics undergirding their work or in the application of their results to social policy. Some researchers believe that they should explore specific issues for knowledge’s sake alone while others gather data to argue for specific social policies or undertake research to evaluate the interventions suggested by certain social policies.
eBook - PDF- Heather Griffiths, Nathan Keirns, Eric Strayer, Susan Cody-Rydzewski, Gail Scaramuzzo, Tommy Sadler, Sally Vyain, Jeff Bry, Faye Jones(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Openstax(Publisher)
who spend at least 10 percent of their income on healthcare costs that are not covered by insurance a system that guarantees healthcare coverage for everyone Section Summary 19.1 The Social Construction of Health Medical sociology is the systematic study of how humans manage issues of health and illness, disease and disorders, and healthcare for both the sick and the healthy. The social construction of health explains how society shapes and is shaped by medical ideas. 19.2 Global Health Social epidemiology is the study of the causes and distribution of diseases. From a global perspective, the health issues of high-income nations tend toward diseases like cancer as well as those that are linked to obesity, like heart disease, diabetes, and musculoskeletal disorders. Low-income nations are more likely to contend with infectious disease, high infant mortality rates, scarce medical personnel, and inadequate water and sanitation systems. Chapter 19 | Health and Medicine 439 19.3 Health in the United States Although people in the United States are generally in good health compared to less developed countries, the United States is still facing challenging issues such as a prevalence of obesity and diabetes. Moreover, people in the United States of historically disadvantaged racial groups, ethnicities, socioeconomic status, and gender experience lower levels of healthcare. Mental health and disability are health issues that are significantly impacted by social norms. 19.4 Comparative Health and Medicine There are broad, structural differences among the healthcare systems of different countries. In core nations, those differences include publicly funded healthcare, privately funded healthcare, and combinations of both. In peripheral and semi-peripheral countries, a lack of basic healthcare administration can be the defining feature of the system.
eBook - PDFThe Culture of Health
Asian Communities in the United States
- Grace Xueqin Ma(Author)
- 1999(Publication Date)
- Praeger(Publisher)
2 Sociocultural Perspective of Health and Health Care What is health? How do we define the term? Colloquially, health is perceived simply as the absence of disease or infirmity, a view that has become a common phenomenon. Practically, this definition exerts strong influences on individual health actions, social policies, and health resource allocation. For example, the majority of the nation's health resources are spent on disease treatment, hospital facilities, and medical equipment—allocation, according to Simons-Morton and Greene (1995), that is based on the narrow-focused definition of health and the biomedical approach. The literature offers many definitions of health. The most commonly quoted definition of health is that of the World Health Organization (WHO). In 1946, WHO defined health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity (Downie et al, 1990). In recent years, another dimension of health has surfaced in Western practices, namely, spiritual well-being. This is an important part of traditional medicine. Spirituality as a factor in healing, curing, and caring is often discussed in the context of faith, spirituality, religion, and health beliefs. These concepts are often undervalued in Western medicine. The concept of health transcends the state of being free of illness or of having basic health maintenance. It is an integral part of life, an evolving process in which individuals and families strive to become healthier across all dimensions of their physical, mental, social, and spiritual lives. The well-being and wholeness of an individual is a function of the positive development of 22 The Culture of Health these critical developmental aspects within a healthy family unit, supportive community, and society. Spirituality is a unique energy that binds all the elements of one's total being, effecting a state of spiritual well-being.
eBook - PDFThe Sociology of Health, Illness, and Health Care
A Critical Approach
- Rose Weitz(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
I Social Factors and Illness Chapter 1 The Sociology of Health, Illness, and Health Care Chapter 2 The Social Sources of Modern Illness Chapter 3 The Social Distribution of Illness in the United States Chapter 4 Illness and Death in the Less Developed Nations Illness is a fact of life. Everyone experiences illness sooner or later, and everyone eventually must cope with illness among close friends and relatives. To the ill individual, illness can seem a purely internal and personal experi-ence. But illness is also a social phenomenon with social roots and social conse-quences. In this first part, we look at the role that social factors play in fostering illness within societies and in determining which groups in a given society will experience which illnesses with which consequences. Chapter 1 introduces the sociological perspective and illustrates how sociol-ogy can help us understand issues related to health, illness, and health care. The chapter also provides a brief history of disease in the Western world, which high-lights how social factors can foster disease. In the subsequent chapters, we explore the role social forces play in causing disease and in determining who gets ill in the modern world. In Chapter 2, we review the basic concepts needed to discuss diseases and look at modern patterns of disease. After that, we look at the social sources of illness in the contemporary United States and at some social factors that help predict individual health and illness. In Chapter 3, we investigate how four social factors — age, sex and gender, social class, and race or ethnicity — affect the 1 P A R T I Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience.
eBook - PDFVital Notes for Nurses
Principles of Care
- Hilary Lloyd, Helen Hancock, Steven Campbell(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
(2) Perceived cause : may be biological, psychosocial. (3) Time line : how long will it last; acute or chronic. (4) Consequences : limiting consequences, e.g. physical, emotional, financial and those of treatment. (5) Curability and controllability : e.g. cancer versus the flu, control by the individual or by others. Summary • While definitions of health and illness can be found in the lit-erature, individual definitions vary substantially and are affected by a number of social, cultural and other factors. • The two most common models of health and illness are the biomedical model and the biopsychosocial model. • The view that health is a multidimensional concept and includes physiological, psychological and behavioural components has gained increasing support in recent years. • Health beliefs shape the way an individual behaves in response to his/her experiences of health and illness. • It is important for nurses to understand the health beliefs of individuals in their care. • There are a number of models of health behaviour, which are based on health beliefs. These include: the health belief model, the transtheoretical model and the theory of planned behaviour. • The way an individual responds to an illness, or the threat of an illness, is also affected by the way he or she interprets the five cognitive dimensions of illness. Concepts of health 13 References Acheson, D (1998) Independent Inquiry into Inequalities in Health Report – Acheson Inquiry . Available at http://www.archive.officialdocuments.co. uk/document/doh/ih/ih.htm Ajzen, I (1985) From Intentions to Actions: A theory of planned behaviour. In: Kulh, J & Beckman, J (eds) Action Control From Cognition to Behaviour . Springer, New York. pp. 11–39. Ajzen, I & Fishbein, M (1980) Understanding Attitudes and Predicting Social Behaviour . Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Bandura, A (1977) Social Learning Theory .
eBook - PDF- Michael Murray(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Red Globe Press(Publisher)
Conclusion Perhaps the most obvious conclusions to be drawn from this chapter is that the multifarious nature of health and illness, its embeddedness in the social and political communities in which we live, and the complex natural processes of pathogenesis make any singular attempt to classify a psychology of health and illness nigh impossible. However, that would be the wrong take-home mes-sage. Complexity does not mean anarchy just as psychology’s single functional model can explain neither the socio-political nature nor the personal experi-ence of health and illness. Indeed, the complexity of the nature of health and illness demands that we pay close attention to the local and the personal. By this, I mean paying attention to the worlds of people who carry the burden of particular illnesses, refusing to let biomedicine speak for them or reduce their voice to singular and univocal instances of ‘adaptation’ and ‘coping’. At the same time, we also need to monitor global processes that biomedicine sets in motion or fails to set in motion (e.g., in the failure to provide relief for the 34 HENDERIKUS J. STAM HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa). These global processes are intimately connected to other forces of globalisation and corporatisation. Does this not seem like we have travelled a long way from the questions of history and theory? I do not believe we have, for it is in committing ourselves to theorise the local that we can understand the larger issues confronting us. Individuals who are ill, communities in need of preventive practices, these are real consumers of knowledge and care but also crucibles of wisdom and knowledge. If the health psychologist is going to mobilise that knowledge, it will not be along the lines of some universal, functional model that is the outcome of processes far removed from the experiences of those for whom the professional seeks to speak. To force the singular model/variables into a psychology of health and illness is wishful thinking.
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