A Sociological Theory Of Health And Illness

There are a lot of different definitions of health and ill health all of which are socially constructed; meaning that social issues usually influence a new theory or alter an old definition of health. In this section I will be analysing different definitions of health and ill health.

“Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander people have a greater amount of disadvantage and significantly more health problems than the non-Aboriginal & Torres strait Islander population in Australia”

 Explain basic features of a sociological approach to health and  illness  Describe the key

There is growing research into what has become known as the social determinants of health; the central claim arising from this research is that “various social factors have a strong influence on population health and on inequalities in health outcomes across social groups”. (Preda & Voigt, 2015) Social determinants of health are conditions in the environments in which people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality of life outcomes and risks. Conditions such as social, economic, and physical in various environments and settings such as school, church, work, or neighborhood have been referred to as “place”. (HP 2020) According to Healthy People 2020 (2016) understanding the relationship between how population groups experience “place” and the impact of “place” on health is fundamental to the social determinants of health. Healthy People 2020 (2016) have developed an approach to social determinants by organizing a “place-based” framework, reflecting five key areas of social determinants of health. Each of these five determinant areas, economic stability, education, social and community context, health and healthcare, neighborhood and built environment; reflects a number of critical components that make up the underlying factors in the arena of social determinants of health. Differences in social, economic, and environmental circumstances lead to health inequalities that are socially produced and therefore

Throughout society there are many different sociological approaches to health and ill health. Within society there are many different perspectives towards whom the responsibility for health falls upon and also what defines people as ill? Your health is defined by the general condition of your body and mind. An illness is defined by an impairment of normal physical or mental function. To help explain the different sociological approaches to health and ill health I will be referring to the case study of Aziz and Tamsela. Aziz and Tamsela have four young children; Tamsela’s elderly parents also live with them in their three bedroomed houses in a deprived and depressing area of London. Their house is in desperate need of repair; it is damp and

Mortality rates: In gender men generally die earlier than women because of many aspects of their life, for instance in general women tend to take care of them self more physically. A lot of women go on diets and a lot of exercise DVDs and detunes are mainly aimed at women. Women in general do try to eat healthy and go on diets whereas men usually aren't very aware of their diet and don’t have much intention on improving it. Women also tend to go to the doctors and seek medical advice more often and have their illnesses diagnosed and treated more often than men. Because women' generally take more care of themselves and do more to keep themselves healthy.

The Functionalist Perspective in sociology states that everyone in the society holds a position and in this position their status has a set of roles or certain behaviors that are required to perform the tasks at hand (Kornblum and Julian, 2004.) The roles consist of nurses at the medical institutions, lawyer's at international firms or just a blue collar worker at any type of factory. For the most part, each status' role is involved in an institution of some kind and is needed for the economy and society to function as a whole. "The Functionalist Perspective looks at the way major social instructions like the family, military, the health-care system, and the police and courts actually operate (Kornblum and Julian, 2004, 6.)" This basically means that for these institutions that are needed to fulfill these roles and duties for the economy, the roles and behaviors of employees need to evolve as a whole so that the institution can function (Kornblum and Julian, 2004.) For example, a nurse needs to know certain things about her job like what medicine can treat a certain

In the last few years, nurses and other healthcare professionals (HCPs) are under the spotlight of the media and the public due to issues addressed in documents such as The Francis Report (2010). This is good in a sense though as it gives us the opportunity to better ourselves as HCPs and improve the standard of care for everyone. It is now a widely known idea that there are many different factors that affect our health and wellbeing not just biological factors as believed to be the case not very long ago when a biological view was taken when addressing a person's health. However, this has all changed for the better where now healthcare is individualised, holistic and takes in to account the individuals own circumstances i.e. the social determinants of health and wellbeing (social determinants), not a simple one size fits all approach. This essay is going to discuss some of these factors so that we can learn to reduce these inequalities in healthcare and make great healthcare more accessible to everyone. The factors that will be discussed are individual lifestyle choices, housing conditions and .

One sociological perspective is the Functionalist theory. Functionalism is one of the earliest sociological theories. Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) was a professor and was interested in how society was possible and how society remains stable. This theory focuses on the macro-level of social structure rather than micro-level of everyday life. Functionalism sees society in parts which form a system, the parts depend on each other. Functionalist theory looks at the parts of society such as

Functionalism is seen as a macro-scale approach to society; it sees society as a whole rather than looking at parts of it. Due to this, functionalism sees society as a body (organic analogy), all the institutions work together to make society. This is particularly useful when observing society in order to understand the way in which it functions and the way in which all the institutions (organic analogy: organs within the body) work together to sustain society as a whole. Functionalism being a macro-scale approach is therefore seen as a strength as it allows functionalist sociologists to observe society, and its institutions, as a whole.

Discuss what is meant by medicalisation and in what ways we can consider diseases to be socially constructed.

Functionalism developed out of the positivist observation that 'all positive speculations owe their first origin to the occupations of practical life' (Comte, 1865, pg 11) and the boundaries of scientific knowledge can not go further than empirically observable truths and views societies as holistic systems where 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts' (Taylor et el, 1997, pg 662). Functionalist analysis draws on three assumptions essentially seeking to transform society into a theoretical system of reality. The first assumption is that there are zero independent parts operating within

Functionalist one of the “theories” of sociology are mainly concerned with the function of education to society and to seek solution to the following questions, “what is the relevance of education to the social system and “what are the relationship between education and economic system”.

Functionalist theory is one of the major theoretical perspectives in sociology. It can be argued that the functionalist theory has made a significant contribution to the study of society. It originates from the work of Emile Durkheim who suggests that social order is possible and society remains stable due to the functioning of several institutions. Everything has a specific function in society and society will always function in harmony. The main institutions studied by functionalism are the family, the education system, religion and crime and deviance.

There is one undeniable fact of life; if you are human, you will get sick. This last week of college has been a trying time for me. After the first two weeks of college having gone with out a hitch, I should have guessed something bad was coming. I managed to get sick, in fact, I have never felt so terrible in my life. My throat was swollen, to the point I could not swallow, my stomach felt as if it were reenacting World War I, and I was over all physically drained. Yet, regardless of how poorly I felt, the world moves on. Everything from, extracurricular activities, classes, my study plan, and life in general, continues to march on in sickness and in health.