1 / 13

HEALTH AND MEDICINE

HEALTH AND MEDICINE. Health -- a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being. It is as much a social as a biological issue What is defined as health and illness is influenced by culture. Society and health. 1. People judge their health in relation to others they know.

wynona
Download Presentation

HEALTH AND MEDICINE

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. HEALTH AND MEDICINE • Health -- a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being. • It is as much a social as a biological issue • What is defined as health and illness is influenced by culture.

  2. Society and health 1. People judge their health in relation to others they know. 2. People define as “healthy” what they think of as morally good. 3. Cultural standards of health change over time. 4. Health relates to a society’s technology. 5. Health relates to social inequality

  3. Health Issues in the U.S. • Social epidemiology -- the study of how health and disease are distributed throughout a society’s population. a) Age and sex b) Social class c) Race c) Regional differences

  4. Eating disorder --an intense involvement in dieting or other forms of weight control in order to become very thin. • Cigarette smoking -- the most serious preventable health hazard. • Sexually transmitted diseases: more than fifty diseases.

  5. Ethical issues: Confronting death. 1. When is a person dead? 2. Do people have a right to die? 3. What about euthanasia, assisting in the death of a person suffering from an incurable disease?

  6. Medicine • Medicine -- a social institution concerned with combating disease and improving health. • Holistic medicine-- emphasizes prevention of illness and takes account of the person’s entire physical and social environment.

  7. Its founded on: 1. Patients are people. 2. Responsibility, not dependency. 3. Personal treatment.

  8. Paying for health: A global View Medicine in socialist societies: a) The People’s Republic of China. b) The former Soviet Union. Medicine in capitalist societies • Sweden-- system described as socialized medicine -- government owns and operates most medical facilities and employs most physicians.

  9. United States • direct-fee system -- patients pay directly for the services of physicians and hospitals. Three ways of paying: • Private insurance programs. • Public insurance programs-Medicare and Medicaid. • Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs)

  10. Theoretical Analyses of Medicine Structural-functional analysis • Views illness as a social dysfunction • People respond to illness by assuming the sick role -- patterns of behavior defined as appropriate for people who are ill.

  11. The sick role has three characteristics: a) Illness suspends routine responsibilities. b) A sick person must want to be well. c) An ailing person must seek competent help. • The physician’s role.

  12. Symbolic-interaction analysis. • The social construction of illness. • The social construction of treatment.

  13. Social Conflict Analysis • Draws a connection between health and social inequality and, ties medicine to the operation of capitalism. 1. The access issue. 2. The profit motive. 3. Medicine as politics.

More Related