E.g. poor housing and poverty are causes to respiratory problems and in response to these causes and origins of ill health. The socio-model aimed to encourage society to include better housing and introduce programmes to tackle poverty as a solution. the strength of socio medical - encourages people to live healthy lifestyles It looks at the cause of the illness and tries to change the factor that causes illness to prevent are occurrence instead of just sending the person away with a bottle of pills until next time the weakness of social models - is that It takes time to look for factors affecting the illness and a prevention to stop. The focus of these models is principally to explain why health inequalities exist and persist.
This essay will be looking at what is meant by the term social model of health and I will be describing the differences when it is compared to the medical model of health. The social model of health is a view that health is multidimensional with social factors, such as class, gender and ethnicity, influencing and patterning health and illness. The medical model of health is a specific way of thinking about and explaining disease based on biological factors One of the recognized explanations of health is established by the World Health Organisation (WHO 1946). WHO defined health as state of complete physical, mental, spiritual and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. (WHO, 1946).
The responsibilities of the sick role include things like the individual taking all the reasonable steps to get better and to resume normal living as soon as possible. It also says the we need to co-operate with medical professionals and in order for society to run smoothly the ill must be cared for, as they cannot work and in some cases they cannot even look after themselves. The Marxist Approach This approach suggests that the services that health and social care provide are there to serve the interest of the more powerful and dominant social classes. Marxists believe that doctors are seen more as agents who are there to get people back to work as soon as possible, therefore working in the interest of the employer and not the patient. High levels of illness are more common in areas of low social class, areas of high unemployment and environmental pollution.
The public health model views mental disorders as the result of malfunctions or pressures created by the environment or by society. This model emphasizes preventing the problem through supporting activities such as use of films, speakers, school programs, and pamphlets, all aimed at educating the population about the problem. Patients are helped outside a residential setting using consultation with family and education of the patient and the family and other community resources. The human service model is concerned with the interaction between the individual and the environment, stressing the need for balance between the two. By the end of the 19th century, the new medical model was based on the assumption that diseases of the soul were completely separate from diseases of the body.
This can be achieved by protecting the public from corrupt practice. Parsons suggested that illness is a concept of Deviance, (in a sociological context, describes actions or behaviours that violate social norms) with ill individuals having a sick role in society. He also suggested that individuals with ill health must be relieved of responsibilities from the ones that the individuals with well health are entitled to. The responsibilities that ill individuals are exempt from may include being, excused from
The society’s role is controlling limiting the abuse of the sick role by acting as a gate keeper and legitimates absence from work for individuals. This can be achieved by protecting the public from unscrupulous practice and acting as a gate keeper to the sick role if over used this could become a dysfunctional
Sociology Assignment Introduction In this assignment am going to write an essay comparing and contrasting the biometrical and sociomedical models of health. I am going to use appropriate sociological terminology and examples from the health and social care sector to demostrate, my ability to apply different sociological perspectives. The two models of health include, biometrical and socio-medical, l will start with the biometrical model. The biometrical model of health has dominated Western societies since the Industrial revolution of the mid-ninetieth century. The biometrical see the human body as a machine that can be fixed when it breaks down.
It works on the theory that if a part of the body goes wrong it should be fixed or replaced, in the same way that a machine would be repaired. Whilst, in the view of the social health model the Marxist perspective of health and illness focuses on the role of the medical profession and the impact of working and living conditions in capitalist society and how these contribute to illness. The contrasting approaches of these health models are evident in how they define the cause and effect of disease, how illness should be treated and what illness is. The biomedical model of health looks at individual physical functioning and describes bad health and illness as the presence of disease and symptoms of illness, as a result of physical causes such as injury or infections. It does not take into account social and psychological factors.
In this essay, I will briefly identify a scholar’s review of the difference between the lay ideas and the biomedical perspective. The essay would synthesis the dichotomy by citing the example of the Yoruba people of Southwestern Nigeria. Merrill Singer (2004) provides us with the best analysis of the issue being examined. In his article titled, “The social origins and expressions of illness,” he reviewed Ronald Frankenburg’s notion of the ‘making social of disease’, and his related concepts ‘the making of disease’ and ‘the making individual of disease’, to review the biomedical conception of disease from the perspective of medical anthropology. As opposed to the tendency of
Materialist and structural explanation Due to data gotten from statistics, this explanation supports the idea that social factors like gender, ethnicity and class play an important role on the impact on health. It explains the level of health patterns and inequalities in the population between the social classes. However a weakness is that believes people should not be responsible for the risky lifestyle choices they make and also believe that people do not have the power to their health experience. The Materialist explanation concentrates on the hazards in society and to which some people have no choice but to be exposed eg the lower classes are exposed to more unhealthy environments because they do more dangerous work, have poorer housing, have fewer resources available to secure good health and are unable to use the health services. * -------------------------------------------------