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Sociological Analysis Of Dr. Mayer 's Article ' The Integration Of Power Into The Understanding Of Disease '

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As the title of article states, Dr. Mayer suggests that political ecology as a new coherent analytical framework over traditional perspective of political economy and cultural ecology in terms of understanding the conditions of disease. Furthermore, "most broadly, the political ecological approach seeks to understand the unintended consequences of environmental decisions, and particularly those consequences that alter human–environment relations" (Mayer, 2006. Appendix C). Dr. Mayer also notes in his article "the integration of power into the understanding of disease dynamic has thus been neglected from several dimensions, and the article represents and attempt at developing a framework for such integration" (Mayer, 1996. p. 443). Dr. Mayer mentions that the traditional approaches of medical geography comprise "studies of health service delivery and studies of disease patterns" (Mayer, 1990). He also states that environment is an important external factor that influence "the functioning of local systems." However, he emphasizes that environment doesn 't always mean some physical condition but it include also conditions that are created by economic and political interests as factors in development and increase of disease. In other words, political power would influence disease condition, and this is the exact point of using the political ecology approach. He argues that the use of political ecology of disease as a new approach for studying medical geography including the

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