Parson’s theory draws attention to the fact that in order to facilitate recovery, conventional medical treatment reduces the “sick” person’s responsibility by shifting accountability to a professional provider such as a doctor and absolving the patient from family and social obligations such as income-earning employment (Turner, 2010, p. 235). In doing so, the patient effectively withdraws from society and is placed above moral criticism and legal punishment, but in exchange for these privileges is also subjected to various forms of social degradation, however implicit such rituals may be (Turner, p. 241). Amongst these degradations are having to assume the social obligation to recover by seeking health care and respecting any subsequence advice (Turner, p. 235). Thus, while the sick role legitimizes illness, it also requires an acceptance of a medical regime whose ultimate objective is to restore the sick person to his conventional social role. The biomedical model is blind to any notion of illness as a means of social
If people are separated from the society they will feel isolated and could lead to depression, anxiety, eating disorders, financial problems and/or health problems. For example of a social class marginalisation is when the high class get the majority of the medication than people who really need it, especially from the low class society. They would feel that it is normal just because they don’t have the money to pay the medication, that’s why most of them just die from untreated sickness. Disempowerment is when an individual or group of people feel less powerful or less confident from others. It might because of their age or gender, age because if you are working in a hospital and you are the youngest among the group the elderly will dominate which make you feel disempowerment.
Unit 7 P2 and M1 The Functionalist Approach Talcott parsons suggests for society to function efficiently its members need to be healthy. Talcott describes illness as a form of deviance and that ill members are performing a social role, a sick role. The right associated with the sick role were being exempt from school, college or work and meeting social and family obligations. Talcott also describes that the ill members are to be cared for by family members, he describes this as the key function of the family. 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 is also important to recognise that the concept of health is relative. A person’s view of what is ‘normal’ health is influenced by factors such as their gender, social class, ethnicity or age (Haralambos M, Heald R, O’ Gorman J and Smith F, 1996). The social model of health suggest that indivual and community health results from structural and cultural influences affecting ethnic minorities, women, the elderly and other particular groups of people. This relative view of health focuses on the barriers and difficulties which prevent the ‘ill’ or ‘disabled’ from having access to health and ‘normality’, as this interpretation of ‘health’ takes into consideration the wider social pressures of
In this essay I will be discussing the sociological approaches to ill health& health whilst assessing the biomedical & socio-medical issues and linking them to the given scenario. There are four particular approaches that I will be focussing on these are: Functionalism, Marxism, Interactionism and Feminism. The functionalist approach to health & ill health is a statement which was inspired by the work of Talcott Parsons. He concluded that in order for a society to function correctly & effectively all the members within the society must be healthy. Those within the society that were sick would be seen as a barrier that stops society from progressing.
Persistent stress from poverty and racism was reported, which creates health risks through physiologic pathways. In order to provide a clear connection to the far-reaching effects of poverty and racism on the social determinants of health, Ecological Theory was used. This theory seems a very broad and complex one and lends itself well to various interpretations accordingly. The authors point out that the version used here is that developed by Sweat and Denison. This iteration has been adapted from the original five stages initially conceptualized by Bronfenbrenner.
hakim P2. Explain different sociological approaches to health and well being 1. There are different sociological approaches to health and well being such as: ● ● the biomedical approach the socio-medical approach The biomedical approach to health and well being is a way of looking at a person’s health as something which is affected by disease, injury and illness rather than the person’s environment and lifestyle. They exclude all other factors which are not related to the body itself. For example, if a person was showing symptoms of a chest infection, the doctor would listen to their chest and send them for an x-ray to find out what has caused the problem rather than questioning their environment and housing conditions.
This is usually based on factors such as income, ownership of property and occupation. People in the lower groupings of social class might not be able to change their behaviour after seeing health education campaigns because they have experienced the poorest health in society, they might believe that they have little control over their health, they might not be able to afford to make changes to their health lifestyle and they could find it harder to access health services (for example there could be less GP services in lower social class areas). People in higher social classes are more likely to be influenced by health campaigns because of money, time and understanding of health campaigns (people of higher social classes spend more years in
Free healthcare would preserve many lives. There is a significant amount of people that are dying, due to lack of health insurance, and the inability to pay for coverage. Today, even people who have fulltime jobs are often incapable of purchasing healthcare. Many jobs do not offer insurance, and people that lose their jobs are often left out. If healthcare was free, every citizen would have access to see a physician.
This process produces environmental pollution while the processes of consuming processed goods have the long term effect on health consequences. For example, eating processed foods, chemical additives etc. Available at: http://www.healthknowledge.org.uk/public-health-textbook/medical-sociology-policy-economics/4a-concepts-health-illness/section1 accessed: 04th November 2013 Interaction approaches to health- The Interactionists approach to health could be a label of assumptions. For example some people who are suffering a serious illness do not consider themselves as ill. This could be approached to health if a professional and the patients come together to negotiate how ill the person is and whether or not they are assigned to be “signed off work”.