The social determinants that affect health are frequently liable for health inequalities which are the partial and unnecessary changes in health position seen in and among nations. The social determinants that will be discussed here are housing, employment, education and income. Housing is the first factor of the social determinants affecting health. The relationship between housing conditions and physical and mental ill health has been analytically recognised through epidemiological studies. The association is, nonetheless, difficult encompassing of the contact of poverty, dissimilarity, entrance to housing and housing as an inner and exterior living situation.
This ambiguity has underscored debates and conflicts in recent years between patients, academics, politicians, and medical practitioners on issues of medical authority, the extent of involvement in the decision making process over personal health as well as the health of others related to them through social structures and institutions (Van Krieken et al. 2006, Blaxter 2000, Bury 2008, White 2002). This essay will attempt to illustrate how “health” is a social phenomenon through the examination of power and inequality. It will focus on the social causes and effects of medicalisation and how the attitudes and positions people occupy in society influence their medical needs. This essay will also highlight some of the challenges faced by the societies around the world in addressing medical inequality.
While its methods have proven effective in vanquishing life-threatening diseases that once ravished the globe, Conventional medicine ultimately lacks the ability to provide humanity with treatments that will ensure long-term health and prosperity. The inherent flaws in the Conventional approach to medicine hinders the full recovery of patients, deprives patients of individualized care, and is, at length, potentially detrimental to health. Conventional medicine, also known as Western medicine, borne out of countless experiments and years of critical analysis, has come to dominate the world of healthcare. It largely focuses on the treatment of disease with short-term and long-term care, primarily through pharmaceuticals, surgical procedures, chemical therapies, diagnostics, and infusions. The Conventional philosophy clearly divides the individual from the disease.
Discussed is the overall wage bill budget, structure of health agencies, and quality, accountability and innovations of health workforce. Government limitations in overall wage bill expansion can result to inadequate resources meant to hire health workers. Although fiscal constrains in developing countries is a major threat to delivering of health, the government needs to put into consideration the impact brought about by policies of wage bill. It is evident that wage bills have restrictions which constrain improvement of the workforce in health sector. A survey done in developing countries revealed that there are considerable weaknesses found in policies and practices of recruiting, deploying, transferring, promoting, sanctioning, and paying of the health workers.
While many people may believe that science alone determines illness, this sociological view points out that society determines sickness as well. Throughout this paper I will describe the theoretical approach, perspectives, strengths, limitations and assumptions of this theory as it related to health. An examination of how the theory may be interpreted, understood, or experienced using CRT and Intersectionality will be done. The end result will identify how my analysis might have implications for social work practice at both the micro and macro level and will include pract... ... middle of paper ... ...es A. Jul-Sep 2004. Symbolic Interactionism and Social Work: A Forgotten Legacy, Part 1: Families in Society; 85, 3; Research Library pg.
To begin with, society and social factors have increasingly been investigated as they have been thought of as crucial components to understand health. This tendency was derived by the inefficiency of the traditional model of health, the biomedical model, in many situations to manage some diseases such as communicable diseases (Browne, Health and Illness, 2005). Disease was predominantly attributed to proximal biological factors identified by doctors according to the classical model accepted in the nineteenth century. Therefore, this model seems to be inadequate to explain the differences in health outcomes between social strata. Despite the fact that health currently could be defined differently depending upon factors such as sex and age, it is generally believed now that it combines physical, mental and social well being of individuals (Blaxter, 2001).
In that sense Parsons noticed that when a person is sick, they are unable to carry out their social responsibility normally. Therefore, Parsons implies that the only way to understand the illness and its effect to society are to look at illness in a different angle as the form of deviance, which undermines the, role of society thus; it should be a way to control the situation same as crime and other form of deviance. This led Parsons to assess the relationship between illness and social control. Haralambos (2000 pg294) Since Parsons emphasised new advances in dealing with illness; thus, he put forward the historical method in the sociology of health known as sick role, he has then shifted illness from biological concept to social theory. Haralambos (2000 pg294) Parsons derived model of sick from studies of Freud, Max Weber and The functionalist.
In recent decades, social scientists concerned with health and illness focused on the notion of the body; the debate about the human body and its representations in the medical field as well as in social and cultural context constitutes an important chapter in sociology and health studies. In this essay, my intention is to undertake a detailed analysis of how different models of conceptualizing the body allow addressing more insights or deeper approaches, and the impact that it has on personal and social life of an individual. The first part of the essay is a brief exploration of the mechanistic model of the body, based on the Cartesian dichotomy of mind / body, and how the disease is conceptualized in this model. In the second part we will focus on theoretical approaches on the human body coming from social sciences and humanities, by trying to supply the integral perspective on the relationship between body, self and society, perspective that allows a rethinking of illness and its effects , taking into account the context of the entire life of the individual. Considering the Cartesian philosophical assumptions,... ... middle of paper ... ... the dichotomy disease / Illness established to differentiate between pathology and suffering of the individual.
In conclusion, this critique has critically examined the view that medicine is a form of social control. Discussing the views of theorists such as Talcott Parsons, Ivan Illich, Narvarro, Irving Zola and Foucault. These theorists have views about how dominating medicine can be in society, the power of the professionals and medicalisation how it refers social problems into medical problems. Throughout this critique, it has been made clear that medicine is a form of social control.
Finally, the ways in which individuals negotiate and resist the medicalisation of death will be discussed including the rise of pro-euthanasia groups, increasing use of complementary medicine, and the popularity of the hospice movement. The main elements of the medical model of health are the search for objective, discernable signs of disease, its diagnosis and treatment (Biswas, 1993). Therefore, by adhering to this reductionist view, the human body is seen as a biochemical machine (Turner, 1995) and health merely as an absence of disease, a commodity to be bought and sold. The rise of hospitals with their goal of curing and controlling disease has led to the marginalisation of lay medicine, and a focus upon the individual rather than society as a cause of ill health. Health education and promotion with their focus upon 'victim blaming' and individualism have extended the remit of the medical profession from the hospital into the community.