The Social Construction of Disease
The Social Construction of Disease

Author: Kiheung Kim

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2006-11-22

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 113423712X

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A historical exploration of scientific disputes on the causation of so-called ‘prion diseases’, this fascinating book covers diseases including Scrapie, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE). Firstly tracing the twentieth-century history of disease research and biomedicine, the text then focuses on the relations between scientific practice and wider social transformations, before finally building upon the sociologically informed methodological framework. Incisive and thought-provoking, The Social Construction of Disease provides a valuable contribution to that well-established tradition of social history of science, which refers primarily to the theoretical works of the sociology of scientific knowledge.

Gender and the Social Construction of Illness
Gender and the Social Construction of Illness

Author: Judith Lorber

Publisher: Rowman Altamira

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 0759102384

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Judith Lorber and Lisa Jean Moore consider the interface between the social institutions of gender and Western medicine in this brief, lively textbook. They offer a distinct feminist viewpoint to analyze issues of power and politics concerning physical illness. For a creative, feminist-oriented alternative to traditional texts on medical sociology, medical anthropology, and the history of medicine, this is an ideal choice.

The Social Construction of What?
The Social Construction of What?

Author: Ian Hacking

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1999-05-15

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 9780674812000

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Lost in the raging debate over the validity of social construction is the question of what, precisely, is being constructed. Facts, gender, quarks, reality? Ian Hacking’s book explores an array of examples to reveal the deep issues underlying contentious accounts of reality—especially regarding the status of the natural sciences.

Medical Sociology on the Move
Medical Sociology on the Move

Author: William C. Cockerham

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-04-03

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 9400761937

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This book provides readers with a single source reviewing and updating sociological theory in medical or health sociology. The book not only addresses the major theoretical approaches in the field today, it also identifies the future directions these theories are likely to take in explaining the social processes affecting health and disease. Many of the chapters are written by leading medical sociologists who feature the use of theory in their everyday work, including contributions from the original theorists of fundamental causes, health lifestyles, and medicalization. Theories focusing on both agency and structure are included to provide a comprehensive account of this important area in medical sociology.

Making Minds and Madness
Making Minds and Madness

Author: Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen

Publisher:

Published: 2009-05-28

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13:

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A provocative argument that mental illnesses are not diseases, but the product of varying expectations shared by therapists and patients.

Health, Illness, and the Social Body
Health, Illness, and the Social Body

Author: Peter E. S. Freund

Publisher: Pearson

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 478

ISBN-13:

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For undergraduate courses in Sociology of Health and Illness, Medical Sociology, Medical Anthropology, Urban Studies, Social Medicine, and Nursing, this text presents a critical, holistic interpretation of health, illness, and human bodies that emphasizes power as a key social-structural factor in health and in societal responses to illness.

The Social Construction of SARS
The Social Construction of SARS

Author: John H. Powers

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2008-11-12

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 9027290857

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When the SARS virus began its spread from southern China around the world in spring 2003, it caught regional and international health officials by surprise. The SARS epidemic itself lasted for only a few months, whereas its treatment, in communicative terms, keeps providing us with important lessons that can prepare us all for the much larger pandemic that many are predicting will eventually occur. While the medical aspects of SARS are now relatively well understood, the discursive rhetorical dimensions are much less so. As an international epidemic, SARS arrived in a number of distinctive societies with the result that different communities handled the crisis in different ways, some far more effectively than others. Accordingly, the 12 chapters in The Social Construction of SARS are studies of how a major health-related crisis was understood and dealt with from a communicative perspective in such diverse places as Hong Kong, mainland China, Singapore, Taiwan, Canada and the United States during the SARS outbreak.

The Routledge Handbook of Health Communication
The Routledge Handbook of Health Communication

Author: Teresa L. Thompson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2011-08-24

Total Pages: 691

ISBN-13: 1136931678

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The Routledge Handbook of Health Communication brings together the current body of scholarly work in health communication. With its expansive scope, it offers an introduction for those new to this area, summarizes work for those already learned in the area, and suggests avenues for future research on the relationships between communicative processes and health/health care delivery. This second edition of the Handbook has been organized to reflect the goals of health communication: understanding to make informed decisions and to promote formal and informal systems of care linked to health and well-being. It emphasizes work in such areas as barriers to disclosure in family conversations and medical interactions, access to popular media and advertising, and individual searches online for information and support to guide decisions and behaviors with health consequences. This edition also adds an overview of methods used in health communication and the unique challenges facing health communication researchers applying traditional methods to efforts to gain reliable and valid evidence about the role of communication for health. It introduces the promise of translational research being conducted by health communication researchers from multiple disciplines to form transdisciplinary theories and teams to increase the well-being of not only humans but the systems of care within their nations. Arguably the most comprehensive scholarly resource available for study in this area, the Routledge Handbook of Health Communication serves an invaluable role and reference for students, researchers, and scholars doing work in health communication.

An Introduction to the Sociology of Health and Illness
An Introduction to the Sociology of Health and Illness

Author: Dr Kevin White

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2002-03-26

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1847877133

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The main purpose of this book is to demonstrate that disease is socially produced and distributed. Becoming sick and unhealthy is not the result of individual misfortune or an accident of nature. It is a consequence of the social, political and economic organization of society. In developing this thesis, the author systematically introduces students to the major sociological explanations of the role and functions of medical explanations of disease. The book situates the student securely in the literature and provides a guide to the strengths and weaknesses of the major sociological approaches. It draws out the essential features of the major sociological contributions and elucidates how an appreciation of the dynamics of class, gender, ethnicity and the sociology of knowledge challenges medical power.