12 key words for Medical SociologyWaseda University

4 December, 2013

Antonio MaturoUniversita` di Bologna

Roots• Engels• Durkheim• Parsons• Foucault• Illich

relatives• Anthropology• Epidemiology / public health• Psychology• Economics• Organization studies• Bioethics

WHO (1948)

• Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

1. Inequality• Money• Education• Life expectancy• Morbidy• Access to care

2. Social determinants of health

3. Social capital• Networks• Associations• Access to information• Social support• Trust

4. Social construction of health and illness

• Social representations of normality and pathology

• If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences. (Thomas, 1928)

• Stigma• Social exclusion• Self-fulfilling prophecy

5. Disease, illness, sickness （Twaddle, Mechanic, Kleinman)

• Disease can be considered as the bio-medical definition of a pathology;

• illness coincides with subjective feelings of pain or anxiety and on the subjective interpretation of the pathological state

• sickness as the way by which society interprets a personal condition.

6. Disability• Chronic diseases• Stigma• Normality-pathology• Aging (ageism)• Social construction of disability

• Welfare state….

7. Health care organization

• Welfare state• Taxes• Providers of care• Role of the State• Private/public providers / finance

• Health expenditure

8. Patient-physician relationship

• Asymmetry - Power• Communication• Information• Compliance• Health literacy

9.Medicalization• ‘Once upon a time, plenty of children were unruly,

some adults were shy, and bald men wore hats. Now all of these descriptions might be attributed to diseases – entities with names, diagnostic criteria, and an increasing array of therapeutic options’. McLellan (2007, p.627).

•the process through which a non-medical problem is defined as a disease or a disorder” (Conrad, 2007, p. 4).

10.Brain-Neuroscience

11. Body• Disability• Human enhancement• Eating disorders• Cosmetic surgery• Cyborg

12. Medicine• Power• Extension and expansion of borders

• Health industrial complex• Big pharma• Bigger role in our life

Ciao!

Grazie!