Understanding Health: A Sociological Introduction

161 Pages·2003·0.81 MB·English

by  Anne-Marie Barry

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UNDERSTANDING HEALTH
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UNDERSTANDING HEALTH
A Sociological Introduction
Anne-Marie Barry
and Chris Yuill
SAGE Publications
London • Thousand Oaks • New Delhi
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© Anne-Marie Barry and Chris Yuill 2002
First published 2002
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or
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publishers.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
Acatalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
ISBN0 7619 7306 0
ISBN 0 7619 7307 9 (pbk)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2002107102
Typeset by M Rules
Printed in Great Britain by The Alden Press, Oxford
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
1 The Sociology of Health and Illness: Explaining and Theorising 3
2 The Development of Modern Medicine: Delusions of Adequacy 17
3 Medical Care or Medical Control? 26
4 Challenging Medical Dominance 40
5 Gender, Ethnicity, ‘Race’ and Mental Health 54
6 Class, Capitalism and Health 74
7 The Sociology of the Body 92
8 Health in a Social Context: The Challenge of Ageing 111
9 Health care Contexts 127
References 143
Index 150
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank colleagues past and present for their support,
advice and ideas. Particular thanks are due to Julian Bell for all his help
and support over the past years. Thanks are also due to our publishers for
their advice and patience in the production of this text.
Thanks to family and friends for their support.
To Lynda and Calum, thank you for everything.
And special thanks to Frank Sauzee who gave so much.
Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders, but if any
have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make
the necessary arrangement at the first opportunity.
Figure 2.1: C. Seale and S. Pattison, Medical Knowledge: Doubt and Certainty,
pp. 31–4, 1994. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
Figure 3.1: C. Seale and S. Pattison, Medical Knowledge: Doubt and Certainty,
p. 101, 1994. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
Figure 3.2: B.S. Turner, Medical Power and Social Knowledge, p. 46, 1994.
London: Sage.
Figure 3.3: D.T. Wade, ‘Ethical issues in the diagnosis of Permanent
Vegetative State’, British Medical Journal, 322 (10 February): 352–4. London:
BMJ Publishing Group.
Figure 4.1: C.W. Aakster, ‘Concepts of alternative medicine’, in A. Beattie,
M. Gott, L. Jones and M. Sidell (eds), Health and Well-Being: A Reader,
pp.88–91, 1993. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Figure 5.1: MIND, Mental Health Statistics 1: How Common is Mental
Distress?, 2000. London: MIND.
Figure 5.2: MIND, Mental Health Statistics 1: How Common is Mental
Distress?, 2000. London: MIND.
Figure 5.3: MIND, Mental Health Statistics 1: How Common is Mental
Distress?, 2000. London: MIND.
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viii Acknowledgements
Figure 5.4: D. Pilgrim and A. Rogers, ASociology of Mental Health and Illness,
p. 59, 1993. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Figure 5.5: G. W. Brown and T. Harris, Social Origins of Depression: AStudy
of Psychiatric Disorder in Women, p. 265, 1978. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Table 6.1: Scottish Poverty Information Unit, Poverty in Scotland, p. 10,
1999. Glasgow: Caledonian University.
Figure 6.1: Scottish Poverty Information Unit, Poverty in Scotland, p. 13,
1999. Glasgow: Caledonian University.
Table 6.2: Scottish Poverty Information Unit, Poverty in Scotland, p. 10,
1999. Glasgow: Caledonian University.
Figure 6.2: Scottish Poverty Information Unit, Poverty in Scotland, p. 14,
1999. Glasgow: Caledonian University.
Table 6.3: M. Shaw, D. Dorling, D. Gordon and G. Davey-Smith, The
Wildening Gap: Health Inequalities and Policy in Britain, p. 14, 1999. Bristol:
The Polity Press.
Table 6.4: M. Shaw, D. Dorling, D. Gordon and G. Davey-Smith, The
Widening Gap: Health Inequalities and Policy in Britain, p. 14, 1999. Bristol:
The Polity Press.
Table 6.5: R. Mitchell, M. Shaw and D. Dorling, Inequalities in Life and Death:
What if Britain Were More Equal?, pp. 10–13, 2000. London: The Polity Press.
Table 6.6: M. Kirby, W. Kidd, F. Koubel, J. Barter, T. Hope, A. Kirton, N.
Madry, P. Manning and K. Triggs, Sociology in Perspective, pp. 519–20, 1997.
Oxford: Heinemann Educational Publishers.
Figure 6.3: R. Wilkinson, Unhealthy Societies: The Afflictions of Inequity,
p.114, 1996. London: Routledge.
Figure 6.4: R. Wilkinson, Unhealthy Societies: The Afflictions of Inequity,
p.114, 1996. London: Routledge.
Figure 7.1: S. Nettleton and J. Watson, The Body in Everyday Life, p.4, 1998.
London: Routledge.
Figure 8.1: J. Busfield, Health and Health Care in Modern Britain, p.139, 2000.
Oxford: Oxford University Press; M. Langan, Welfare: Needs, Rights and
Risks, p.46, 1998. London: Routledge/Open University Press.
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INTRODUCTION
Aims
The aim of this book is to provide an introduction to the sociology of
health to both health science and social science students. Throughout this
text we argue that sociology provides not only essential information about
the context of health and illness but, crucially, that sociology can equip us
with the relevant tools to enquire into and explore the world around us. An
enduring characteristic of the discipline of sociology is its radical, critical
edge, that allows us to question what is taken for granted. To this end, this
book is often concerned with uncovering and questioning the very basis of
our understanding of health, medicine and illness. It would be easy, for
example, to accept medical knowledge as a ‘given’ and as a true and objec-
tive representation of the body and of our experiences of disease and
illness. What this text seeks to do is to deconstruct medical knowledge by
examining its origins and by considering the assumptions on which the
medical model is based, and to explore alternative models of health.
Organisation
This text does not assume prior knowledge of sociology. For this reason it
is essential to begin with an overview of sociology itself. Chapter 1 seeks to
provide readers with a basic understanding of three areas. First we con-
sider what is distinctive about sociology as a discipline in terms of what is
or is not its subject matter. Second, we examine the methods of enquiry and
evidence that underpin the discipline. Particular attention is paid to the
‘sociological imagination’ (the requirement to think outside our own expe-
riences and to evidence any statements made). Finally, we provide an
overview of different theoretical approaches within the discipline.
Chapters 2–4 are principally concerned with medical knowledge and
medical practice, rather than with health and illness per se. It is essential, we
believe, for students of the sociology of health to have a detailed knowledge
of the body of knowledge that has dominated our thinking about health
and disease for hundreds of years. Chapters 2 and 3 seek a sociological
understanding of the history, development and practice of biomedicine in
the western world. Here you will find a critical evaluation of the strengths
and weaknesses of the medical model, using both historical and contem-
porary examples. Chapter 4 explores alternatives to the practice of
biomedicine and to its knowledge base through a discussion of critiques
offered by feminist sociologists and practitioners of alternative medicine.