The Sociology of the Health Service


Book Description

The Sociology of the Health Service responds directly to the need to develop a sociological analysis of current health policy. Topics covered vary from privatisation and health service management to health education and the politics of professional power. Also included is an histroical review of sociology's contributions to health policy and proposals for an agenda for sociological health policy research in the 1990s.




The New Sociology of the Health Service


Book Description

Health service policy and health policy have changed considerably over the past fifteen years and there is a pressing need for an up-to-date sociological analysis of health policy. Not only have policies themselves changed but new policy themes – such as evidence-based policy and practice, an increasing focus on a primary care led health service, a growing recognition of the need to address inequalities through public health policies and a focus on the views and the voice of the user and the public– have emerged alongside some of the old. Following up the very successful The Sociology of the Health Service, this all-new volume covers a broad range of key contemporary health services issues. It includes chapters on consumerism, technology, evidence-based practice, public health, managerialism and social care among others, and incorporates references to new developments, such as regulation and incentivization, throughout. The New Sociology of the Health Service provides a vital new sociological framework for analyzing health policy and healthcare. It is an important read for all students and researchers of medical sociology and health policy.




The Sociology of Health, Healing, and Illness


Book Description

With thorough coverage of inequality in health care access and practice, this leading textbook has been widely acclaimed by teachers as the most accessible of any available. It introduces and integrates recent research in medical sociology and emphasizes the importance of race, class, gender, and sexuality throughout. This new edition leads students through the complexities of the evolving Affordable Care Act. It significantly expands coverage of medical technology, end-of-life issues, and alternative and complementary health care—topics that students typically debate in the classroom. While the COVID-19 pandemic emerged after this edition of the text was originally submitted, material has been added in Chapters 3, 10, and 13 about it. Many new text boxes and enhancements in pedagogy grace this new edition, which is essential in the fast-changing area of health care. New to this edition: More text boxes relating the social aspects of medicine to students’ lives. Expanded coverage leading students through the complex impacts of the ACA and health care reform. Greater emphasis on sexual minority health and LGBTQ+ persons’ experiences in the health care system. Expanded coverage of medical technology, end-of-life issues, and alternative and complementary health care. "Health and the Internet" sections are updated and renovated to create more interactive student assignments. New end-of-chapter lists of terms, with key terms as flash cards on the companion website. An updated instructor’s guide with test bank.




The Sociology of Healthcare


Book Description

The Sociology of Healthcare, Second Edition explores the impact of current social changes on health, illness and healthcare, and provides an overview of the fundamental concerns in these areas. This new edition features a brand new chapter entitled End of Life which will help health and social care workers to respond with confidence to one of the most difficult and challenging areas of care. The End of Life chapter includes information on changing attitudes to death, theories of death and dying, and palliative care. All chapters have been thoroughly updated to address diversity issues such as gender, ethnicity and disability. In addition, expanded and updated chapters include Childhood and Adolescence and Health Inequalities. The text is further enhanced through the use of case studies that relate theory to professional practice, and discussion questions to aid understanding. Links to websites direct the reader to further information on health, social wellbeing and government policies. This book is essential reading for all students of healthcare including nursing, medicine, midwifery and health studies and for those studying healthcare as part of sociology, social care and social policy degrees. In an age when health policy follows an individualist model of personal responsibility this book by Alan Clarke demonstrates with a vast array of evidence, just how much there is such a thing as society. An excellent overall book.Dr. Stephen Cowden, Senior Lecturer in Social Work, Coventry University




Health, Illness, and Society


Book Description

This engaging text provides a sociological perspective on health, illness, and health care. Serving as an introduction to medical sociology for undergraduate and graduate students, it also presents a summary of the field for medical sociologists and for public health scholars and practitioners. A highlight of the text is its emphasis on the social roots of health and disease and on the impact of social inequality on health disparities and the quality of health care. The book also critically examines health care in the United States and around the world and evaluates the achievements and limitations of the Affordable Care Act and other recent health care reform efforts.




Sociology and Health Care


Book Description




The Sociology of Health, Illness, and Health Care


Book Description

Traditionally, medical sociology texts have been written from a medical perspective, focusing primarily on health issues as they have been defined by doctors, and often reading much like health education textbooks. Weitz, instead, adopts a critical perspective, sometimes challenging medical perspectives, sometimes raising broader issues beyond those of interest to the medical world. This perspective, which is more thoroughly sociological, is now more common among instructors than the older medical perspective.




Situated Intervention


Book Description

An exploration of sociological research that is neither “detached” nor “engaged”; a new approach to sociological knowledge production, with examples from health care. In this book, Teun Zuiderent-Jerak considers how the direct involvement of social scientists in the practices they study can lead to the production of sociological knowledge. Neither “detached” sociological scholarship nor “engaged” social science, this new approach to sociological research brings together two activities often viewed as belonging to different realms: intervening in practices and furthering scholarly understanding of them. Just as the natural sciences benefited from broadening their scholarship from theorizing to experiment, so too could the social sciences. Additionally, Zuiderent-Jerak points out, rather than proceeding from a pre-set normative agenda, scholarly intervention allows for the experimental production of normativity. Scholars are far from detached, but still may be surprised by the normative outcomes of the interactions within the experiment. Zuiderent-Jerak illustrates situated intervention research with a series of examples drawn from health care. Among the topics addressed are patient compliance in hemophilia home care, the organization of oncology care and the value of situated standardization, the relationship between standardization and patient centeredness, the development of patient-centered pathways, value-driven and savings-driven approaches to the construction of health care markets, and multiple ontologies of safety in care for older adults. Finally, returning to the question of normativity in sociological research, Zuiderent-Jerak proposes an ethics of specificity according to which research adapts its sociological responses to the practices studied. Sociology not only has more to offer to the practices it studies; it also has more to learn from them.




The Sociology of Health and Illness


Book Description

This reader brings together recent writing on health, illness and health care in contemporary society. It emphasizes the empirical nature of medical sociology and its relationship with the development of sociological theory.




The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology


Book Description

A comprehensive collection of original essays by leading medical sociologists from around the world, fully updated to reflect contemporary research and global health issues The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology is an authoritative overview of the most recent research, major theoretical approaches, and central issues and debates within the field. Bringing together contributions from an international team of leading scholars, this wide-ranging volume summarizes significant new developments and discusses a broad range of globally-relevant topics. The Companion's twenty-eight chapters contain timely, theoretically-informed coverage of the coronavirus pandemic and emerging diseases, bioethics, healthcare delivery systems, health disparities associated with migration, social class, gender, and race. It also explores mental health, the family, religion, and many other real-world health concerns. The most up-to-date and comprehensive single-volume reference on the key concepts and contemporary issues in medical sociology, this book: Presents thematically-organized essays by authors who are recognized experts in their fields Features new chapters reflecting state-of-the-art research and contemporary issues relevant to global health Covers vital topics such as current bioethical debates and the global effort to cope with the coronavirus pandemic Discusses the important relationship between culture and health in a global context Provide fresh perspectives on the sociology of the body, biomedicalization, health lifestyle theory, doctor-patient relations, and social capital and health The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology is essential reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in medical sociology, health studies, and health care, as well as for academics, researchers, and practitioners wanting to keep pace with new developments in the field.