SOCIOLOGY IN HEALTH
Introduction
According to World Health Organization, health can be considered as a state of complete physical, mental and social well being of a person and not the mere absence of disease or infirmity. This means that the definition of health takes a holistic approach in that it does not assess health in terms of diseases or infirmity alone. This arises from the fact that there are many factors that determine the health status of a person. The well being of an individual is contributed by many integrating factors. The medical definition of health may be more leaned to presence or absence of a disease condition but the social definition of health includes many other factors which affect the functioning of a person. A person may be free of any illness or deformity but the social factors that surround that person may play a great role in determining the well being of that person.
Health of a person can be contributed by factors that affect the physical, mental and social well being of a person. What does this imply? This implies that the state of physical fitness, mental fitness and social life of a person is very crucial in determining the well being of an individual. Let’s take an example of a person where one of his/her closest friend has died. The bereaved will be left mourning for days. The bereaved is left with a great burden of a stressful life which adversely affects his/her wellbeing. This may at the end bring death as an aspect of serious illness due to the accompanying effect of that death. This means that although the person may be physically and mentally fit, the social effect of losing a loved one may be a great factor contributing to the health status of the person. (Department of Health, 2002)
There are two important reports that depicted the inequalities in health care, The Black report of 1980 and the Heath Divide Report of 1987. Both of these reports identified the failure by the HNS to address the issue of inequalities in health opportunities in the country. Both reports came out with clear indications of inequalities in British class system. The outcomes of the reports were further evidenced by the department of Health and Social Security which in 1993 also pointed out existence of differences in social class and geographical locations as reflected in mortality and morbidity rates. This report indicated the life expectancy at birth in 1994 was 78 years for women and 72 years for men. It also pointed out the increased likelihood of men dying from heat disease and women form cancer. Our analysis of the health inequality will be based on these two reports.
Concepts involved in the social construction of health and illness.
Social construction can be considered in terms of patterns of health as expressed in aspects of social class. Social construct tries to define social aspect of health that leads to heath status of individuals. It looks closely to health in terms of various factors like the health of family members, health of communities and heath of nations. Social construction is seen as a broader outlook in the health of a population in above perspectives.
Social construction looks at health in terms of health of family members. Using this outlook it seeks to look at factors that determine the health of family member. It recognizes the family as the basic unit of life in the society. Social construction seeks to look at the factors that affect the health status of member of a family which have an effect on the health of the community and that of the nation as a whole. Being the building block of a nation, the heath of family members is of paramount importance if a nation is to achieve overall heath well being. In most instances the factors that affect the family of family members will affect the health of the community and that of a nation but not in all instances. Let us look at this closely and the effects of these factors.
In a society, there are different families. Although there are segmentations in the society, the family can be considered as the basic unit of the society. A society is usually inhabited by different kinds of families in different classes and of different ethnic groups. In a society there may be two families one in an upper class segment and the other in a lower class segment. Usually the heath status of these families will be different. Looking at the family level, the level of income of these families will be a determinant of health status of its members. Hence at the family level, there will be factors that will be affecting the health status of its members. (Blane et al., 1996
At the society level, a society is affected by different communities that may be defined by different bonding factors. These factors may be religion, ethnic, class factors and others which may create different communities in the society. Again as there were factors affecting the health status of family members, there will be factors that will be affecting the heath status of different community members. One of the factors that have been found to contribute to health status of community members and which shows inequities in the heath care system has been the issue of ethnic groups and social classes in the society. It has been found out that minority ethnic groups have poor health status as compared to major ethnic groups. This has been found to be contributed by many different factors.
In a broad outlook, the health of different societies affects the health of a nation. A nation is made up of societies which together comprise one society under one name the nation. We may talk of a British society living in Britain but which is made of other small societies living in different parts of Britain. The health of a nation is determined by health policies that have been put in place by the government. It is to be understood that these health polices are very important in determining the health of the family members, communities and the nation as a whole.
It is generally accepted that there are various inequalities in health care provisions. These differences are valid according to various factors. The patterns of inequality in health care provisions varies depending on place, gender, age, year of births, ethnicity and many other factors. However it should be understood that these differences varies with different measure of health that are used in assessing the inequality.
There are different perspectives to health that have helped to shape the modern day’s health system. According to the Marxist perspective, the capitalist society defines health as the inability to work. This definition is mostly envisaged in the hands of the middle class professionals who diagnose who is ill and who is not ill. In this perspective the working class is more likely to be perceived as malingerers. In this perspective, ill health is seen as an objective of physical ailment which diverts attention from the class based inequalities of illness and disease. This perspective puts profit before health which drives the consumption pattern among the working class of the society. This perspective emphasizes more on profit before the health of the individual, which is reflected in the lifestyle.
On the other hand, the functionalist perspective views each institution as a function. It postulates that ill health is normal and must be identifies and resolved to satisfy the majority. It is this perspective that gives the health professionals high status in the society. Doctors assume the role of monitoring the patients and limiting their absence from work and family roles. According to this perspective, there are varieties in the health care and people have a choice to the health care to use. Hence the inequality in health here is brought by the fact that some people make better use of health facilities than others. This perspective puts more hope on the upcoming technology to help resolve the issues of medical care in the future.
According to the interactionist perspective, people derive meaning from events an act on their interpretations. People create meaning in their lives through symbolic communications and interpretations to make sense of the world. This perspective views health and illness as social constructs which results from labels attached by professionals following a process of negotiation which is actually due to the power of doctors and medical staff. In this perspective, doctors have a role in managing of the patients by restricting the information they give to the patients.
The feminist perspective view biological models which turn women into reproductive machines. According to this perspective there is protection of patriarchy by defining women as abnormal. This perspective represents the inequality in health that women suffer in the hands of men. It fights for gender equity in provision of health care.
The evaluation of the above perspective in health gives critical evidence that it is still difficult for us to exactly define health in the society. This is duet to the different perspective as expressed above which all seems to take one side. While the capitalist perspective will be arguing more on the need to have private health care, other perspective seems to stress the need to have public health care. The approach that has been taken by the government has been more of a capitalist approach although there is evidence that private health care can help in resolving health inequality. The feminist perspective tries to tackle the gender inequality in health care since it takes the biological model of women to emphasize the need to have more women access health care.
The relationship between culture and perceptions of health, including body image
Although there
