The family also has very ill health; during the winter the children generally seem to have constant colds. The functionalist approach The functionalist approach to health is studying the relationship between the sick individual and the society as a whole. Talcott Parsons stated that using the traditional functionalist approach, for the society to function efficiently the members of the society need to be free from illness and must be of well health. The functionalist view in health and social care believes that medicine serves the wellbeing of society as a whole and that the public are protected from people whom may want to abuse the system. 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.
Sick people should be cared for. The functionalist believes that ill health can really affect the individuals and the society. The functionalist Parson argued that too much of sickness and sick people will affect the society in different factors such as people will start taking more days off and will not be able to work therefore it will affect the workplace and also the society to perform smoothly. The functionalist believes that there is different stage to take care for ill health and the procedures of controlling illness can only be done by the help of medical professionals. An individual is responsible for their own health and decision which means they should be able to decide if they want any medical treatments for their illness to get better.
To define the concept of ill- health there are two main approaches, arising from different views of what the courses are, referred to as the medical and social models of health. Essentially the foundations of these models of health can be separated by, prevention and cure. The biomedical model focuses on cure for illness, whilst the social models of health underpin the origins of illness, allowing these models to successfully coexists, alongside each. The biomedical model presumes that illness is always due to abnormalities in the body's workings. 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.
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.
P2 Explain the Different Sociological Approaches to Health and ill Health. There are several approaches to health and ill health in sociology which include Functionalism, Marxism, Feminism and Interactionism. There are two main ways that sociology views health in both negative and positive factors. In negative terms health is the absence of disease whereas the World Health Organisation in 1970’s defines positive health as a state of complete physical mental, and emotional well being not merely the lack of disease. The functionalist approach The functionalist approach is seen as a structural consensus theory in which health is studying the relationship between the sick individual and its affects on the society as a whole.
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).
Social construction refers to the statistics like the morbidity and mortality rate of our society. Our gender, class, ethnicity, religion and even education construct society, these all determine our experience of reality. An example of how sociologists have tried to deconstruct health in society is looking at the theories of sociologists like Leslie (1980). She developed the '3 Fold model of Health'. She researched and developed her concept by looking at health in different countries/cultures.
That can cause whiplash that could be very painful. Seatbelts can cause you many more injuries then what would normally be caused.many people who report having injuries caused by seatbelts say its because it stopped them from moving, witch could have been a good thing but then again they have more injuries. Some people think that a seatbelt is whats going to hurt them the most in an accident because they know that they could cause whiplash. Witch is why people do not like to wear them. Also people think that seatbelts are very uncomfortable.
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.
Some would argue that people that have ill- health will fall to the bottom of society and people in this group are least likely to have healthy lifestyles. However a more structural approach would argue that there are factors outside the individual’s control, such as education, living conditions and so on which affect their health and life chances. The Biomedical Model of Health The Biomedical model of health argues that health and ill-health have biological causes and are caused by factors such as viruses, genetic characteristics, bacteria and so on. It believes that the body is a machine and the result of ill-health is due to the dysfunctions of the machine. It also focuses more on the individual and their physical functioning and describes bad health to be the presence of disease; it also describes illness to be the result of physical causes, for example injuries or infections and does not take into considerations any social factors that may affect health and illness.