Tacot Parsons’s Contribution to the Sociology of Health

Sociological pathology uses medical terms to offer explanations for deviant behavior. Terms, such as, biological, psychiatric models, psychoanalytical, and psychological presents deviant behavior as a “social sickness” which needs to treated and through medicine and psychiatric counseling. Biological explanations, usually, views deviant behavior as being an inherited trait. Cesare Lombroso was highly criticized for his studies of atavism, his theory of identifying criminal behavior as a biological degenerate. William Sheldon established an idea of a certain body build would be more prone to deviant or criminal acts.

Health as a Social Construction In my essay, I aim to find out why social construction affects the health of our society. Ill health may be defined as 'a bodily or mental state that is deemed undesirable'. This means that health is the condition of the body both physically and mentally. Social construction of health refers to the way health varies from one society to another. Social construction refers to the statistics like the morbidity and mortality rate of our society.

Considering the Cartesian philosophical assumptions,... ... middle of paper ... ... the dichotomy disease / Illness established to differentiate between pathology and suffering of the individual. While disease is an organic condition that can be discovered through various laboratory procedures, illness is much more subjectively, describing the status of the individual suffering and how the suffering is influencing his daily experience of life ( EJ Sobo , 2004:3 ) .The concept of illness includes both individual reactions to the state of being ill, and beliefs and attitudes that he has on the disease of suffering ( M. Winkelman 2009:60 ) . At least in theory, disease is universal, pathological damage of the body can be labelled and classified. Illness, however, is a variable factor, influenced by human personality traits, family background and social context, as well as, by the cultural context which acts as a modelling vector of human suffering.

Stress as an epidemic in the 21st Century – The Mental Health of Medical Professionals This paper considers stress as an epidemic in contemporary society in light of the mental health of medical practitioners. Stress, will be defined in terms of the symptoms and characteristics of three types of stress, that of acute, episodic acute and chronic stress. Intrapersonal effects and impacts on the families of practitioners of long term work related anxiety is considered while statistics from studies on the incidence of stress related suicide of doctors is discussed. Other factors such as internal and external influences are reviewed while a link between empathy and compassion fatigue is considered. Prevention of stress related illness, rather than cure is considered with regards to primary and secondary prevention.

Functionalist believe that sick role is “societal expectations about the attitude and behavior of a person viewed being ill”. Early influential functionalist emphasis medicine’s role to maintain or even cure a ‘”normal”’ functioning individuals of society. In simple words, the patient or individual would be seeking to get well. It was also understood functionalist believe even disabled people were classified as sick. The downfall with functionalism is they confuse impairment and disability with the “sick role”.

The main emphasis of this perspective is on value consensus, social order, stability, and functional processes at macro-level of society According to him, health is functional for the society and sickness is deviance that is dysfunctional for the society. Parson studied sickness from sociological point of view. The main focus of sociological approach is to explain the chronic illness from functional disabilities point of view. Parson’s sick role concept was mainly used to focus upon the social aspects related to living with the acute diseases. Sick role is the temporary condition where the person changes his or her normal lifestyle and roles, to play the role of a sick person.

In the health care field, social workers are faced with one of the most difficult and conflict social problem. Patients who are chronically ill have on occasion if they can end their life at their decision. As a social work, you must follow your code of ethics and the law by denying their right to the end-of-life decision. This is called euthanasia, a practice used to end the life of a seriously ill male or female. There is a conflicting issue on the interplay of person and professional views social workers given to patients who are experiencing or experienced end-of-life decisions.

The aim of this essay is to discuss and understand the link between inequalities in health and ethnicity. This aim will be fulfilled in a number of ways. Firstly by defining and evaluating what race and ethnicity are, distinguishing between the different definitions. Secondly, explaining the biological, as opposed to cultural, differences between race and ethnicity; whilst also explaining sociological studies of race as a social definition; stating why sociologists have abandoned the biological concept of race. Finally, it will explain and evaluate given statistics on health and ethnicity, which will be used as evidence of the unequal health needs and treatment of individuals.

It is a person's own personal belief whether she created her diabetes, or whether he created his cancer as a result of psychological and emotional conflict and trauma. Therefore, we can only look at the facts to postulate the argument that a lack of psychological well being manifests itself somatically. The best way to examine the notion that psychological factors affect medical conditions is with the neurosis Hysteria. Hysteria is also known now as Conversion Disorder or Dissociation, in which unconscious or emotional psychological conflict converts into a bodily disturbance (2). An example of this is anxiety.

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.