Medical Sociology

Medical Sociology is now an established subdiscipline in both medicine and sociology. This book traces the intellectual and institutional evolution of the field in relation to antecendents of the past 2000 years and developments in American sociology and medicine since the turn of the century. Drawing on his own experience as a participant and witness, Bloom provides an engaging account of the ongoing search for knowledge about the relationship between illness, medicine, and society.

Bryan Turner is generally acknowledged to have been the key figure in opening up the sociological debate about the body. In this coruscating and fascinating book he shows how his thinking on the subject has developed and why sociologists must take the body seriously.

Contributors draw upon a range of theories, both modernist and postmodernist, to look at the following themes: health and social structure; the contested nature of the body; the salience of consumption and risk; and the challenge of emotions.

The 'Lived' Body takes a fresh look at the problem of human embodiment through a critical examination of the dualist legacies of the past. A broad range of classical and contemporary social theorists are surveyed -- from Marx to Freud, Foucault to Giddens, Deleuze to Guattari and Irigaray to Grosz -- in terms of the bodily themes and issues they raise. A variety of new areas of research in this rapidly expanding field are also considered, including medical technology and the "fate" of human embodiment, the sociology of emotion, the problem of pain, sleep and dreams, and the relationship between the body, art and society.

This Handbook illustrates how gender, ethnicity, age, and even sexual orientation and understanding influence the health practices and risk factors for health problems in diverse groups of people. Contributions from leading researchers in psychology, health, and epidemiology provide an interdisciplinary approach to the topic. In addition to epidemiological issues, this book discusses the view that public health policy and programs must be individually tailored to specific groups to maximize their effectiveness. Part I deals with the effects of stress on the health of diverse populations. Part II of the book raises the issues of varied health risk factors and health practices for different cultural and socioeconomic groups. Part III examines specific health problems and issues common to women and men of varying ethnicity. The last section deals with the health problems of specific populations. Featuring the latest information for understanding how diverse groups of people perceive and respond to issues relating to their health, this Handbook should prove to be a valuable resource to a wide range of practitioners and researchers in psychology, medicine, psychiatry, sociology, social work, nursing, exercise science, and counseling.

Many healthcare professionals are focusing their concerns on controlling symptoms and minimizing physical distress while failing to deal with the social and psychological factors related to living with long-term chronic illness. Ariela Royer makes an important contribution to the study of health and illness behavior by showing the various strategies chronically ill people use to manage their symptoms and overcome the consequences of their particular illness, so they can live the most normal life possible and maintain their self-esteem.

Medical texts provide a powerful means of accessing contemporary perceptions of illness and through them assumptions about the nature of the body and identity. By mapping these perceptions, from their 19th century focus on illness located in a biological body through to their 'discovery' of the psycho-social patient of the late 20th century, a history of identity, both physical and psychological, is revealed.

Social change in the past quarter of a century has had a considerable impact on health and medicine. Modernity, Medicine and Health brings together a variety of influential sociologists who present their theories on the nature and depth of change, and on the modernity/postmodernity debates, and apply them to issues of health and healing. Among the issues covered are the parameters of the futures of medical sociology itself, the potential and limitations of the postmodern perspective, the interface with public health, analyses of class and gender, new notions of citizenship, complementary medicine, and life and death in postmodern times.