Ways In Which Modern Society Defines Health And Illness

Role of Sociology

Sociology generally is the scholarship which concerns itself with the human social relationships and institutions. It is a diverse subject matter that unifies the broad human subject matters so as to explain how human actions and behaviors shaped by surrounding culture and social models (Germov, 2014). It is a stimulating and informative field of study which analyzes and explains fundamental matters in our lives as a community and globally. It helps us with the skills on how to think, evaluate and better our lives.

Sociology scrutinizes factors of health and employs a number of hypotheses and models in an attempt to understanding health and illness. This paper is going to use two sociological theories to explain social edifice of health and illness in modern societies (Hunt, 2007). It uses grounding descriptive theories to explore the society health. Are there alternative ways the policy makers should consider for improving the overall population health apart from the healthcare policies and its surrounding controversies? How does the biomedical models look like?

This paper focuses specifically on the linkages between health and society, sociological concepts and theories so as to demonstrate the ways in which modern society defines health and illness. It also helps to explain how social contexts are indispensable and fundamental in influencing the general population health patterns and series.

Marxism, also known as the conflict theory is a collection of theory and political policies which implies that the nature of economic organization has tremendous influence on other social spectacles including political systems, cultural models and the overall population health (Levi, 1991). The Marxist view of health and illness focuses on the role of the medical practitioners and the effects of working and living in capitalist society and how these collectively contribute to illness. It focuses on the professional influence of health practitioners to exploit the society; they take advantage of the society class by charging high prices for the medication which they offer above the optimal healthcare (Nimkoff, 1963). The medical professionals are viewed as executing an ideological function by making the real causes of illness. When the population is exploited for the pursuit of high profits it results to mortality and morbidity rates among the working class. Marxism theory reveals that a significant number of the medical practitioners are against forms of public health provision, as in the example of the Australian Medical Association’s (AMA) recurring opposition to the Medicare systems.  

Sociological Theories

Marxist view is that the society is marked by stiff competion; which has resulted to societal conflict. However, Max Weber in his theory of Weberianism differs with Marxism when he recognized the importance of the middle class as an occupational group consisting of individuals with qualifications and skills that arms them with the market advantages over those in manual occupations. Marxism only views two basic classes (Hannam, 2016).

Feminism. Feminist viewpoint in sociology first showed up in the 1960s, is was absolutely aimed at speaking about the neglected gender issues and in some cases the unconcealed sexism in the old sociological theories. It revealed that conventional was male chauvinist. The experience of women as workers, partners, cares or sufferers of abuse were hardly given attention. The original theories of social class as recorded by the Marxist, shamelessly ignored the women and focused on the fathers and the sons.

Feminism was a term coined to mean a broad social and rational effort to address many issues that fall within the range of academic fields of study. Groups of feminism includes: postmodern feminism, radical feminism, liberal feminism and socialist and Marxist feminism (Longino, 1995). Regardless of the various approaches, feminism agenda remain the same to highlight the importance of patriarchy. In feminism, the social structures are patriarchal and they have social institutions such as health, legal systems and education systems. Feminist have challenged the biological assumptions about the nature of women and emphasized that gender is a social building. They have identified the gender role socialization and sex discrimination as the pillars which can help to explain the inequality between the sexes.

Feminism analyses of healthcare have supported the women’s health movement and have drawn attention to body image and eating disorders, issues of sexuality, domestic violence and rape as the key health issues that seeks for the need to enforce appropriate health policies and specialized training of health care practitioners (Longino, 1995).

Currently in sociology, feminist point of view forms its central feature. Feminism have done a great deal in exposing the sexism and biological determinism of medical approaches. It has enhanced increased attention to rights of women in respect to health in terms of health research, the provision of appropriate services and funding of medical care.

The social determinants of health collectively refers to the economic and social factors and their distribution among the overall population that influences their health status. They include income, employment, education, food security and housing among many others. These social determinants of health are directly related to the health outcome and they   are relate close to the public policies. Income may be considered the most important social determinant of health as it plays a major role in the outcome of health (Lee, 2010)

Health: Social Determinants

Generally the less an individual is paid the poorer their health is both physically and psychologically. A secure income level permits an individual or family the ability to purchase more nutritious food and engage in healthy activities which promote good health (Hannam, 2016). Research reveals that individuals who work for high living wages have notable high levels of psychological wellbeing on average compared to those with subsequent lower levels of income. Low income levels affects early childhood developments. Children’s who are born in low income families are more likely to suffer from high levels of aggression compared to their mates from a high income families.

Employment and working conditions have significant impact on the health of a society. Secure and stable jobs provide a measure of income security on top of promoting community connection. These have positively impacted on the wellbeing of the society. Families with unsecure jobs are forced to do multiple jobs which are time consuming and mostly they lack sufficient time to spend with their kids. This impacts negatively on the early development of these children.

High levels of education of an individual usually benefits them together with their community through improved productivity. Food security facilitates nutritious consumption by the households hence improved health. Low food security would cause malnutrition among the community members. Proper housing shields an individual from illness ensuring his wellbeing.

Biomedical model is founded on the assumption that each disease or illness has a specific cause which physically affects the human body an even and foreseeable manner, this implies that universal cure for the overall population is theoretically possible. This theory views the body as a machine composing of interrelated parts. The doctor has a role of identifying and repairing the broken part of the body. This has become the foundation of the modern medicine (Tufik, 2016). Medical research, training of the medical practitioners and their practice has focused more on the identifying and eradicating specific diseases in individuals. It has significantly shifted from the social medicine and its now focusing on the social disease origins.

Quasi -religious views of health and illness were predominant before the establishment of modern medical science. Illness was connected to sin, evils spirits and penance. Hence   the mechanical view of the body as a machine composed of different body parts was viewed as the point of change which conflicts the religious views. Then now there is scientific evolution have long established new findings came scientific discoveries in relation to disease and the symptoms eventually separating the body from the soul.

Biomedical Model

Although biomedical model has resulted in beneficial treatments by facilitating an understanding of the diseases it has several limits.  First it isolates the characteristics of the society and psychological factors, this has resulted to the biomedical underestimating the complex nature of health and illness.. It only views disease in physical terms this likely can cause objectification of patients (Dziedzik, 2012). Medicine have the role played by social factors such as income, education and employment.  Biomedical models focuses on the smaller and smaller features of biology for he identifying the cause and cure of the body parts, this way it marginalizes the need for social support networks.

The health researchers and practitioners should study beyond the biomedical approaches and establish a working model for the society. Sociology examines the overall population practices and lifestyle associated with healthcare. It looks at the various forms of health inequality and explain the influence of the society   over health and illness. When it is established that a group of social members are experiencing similar health problems then there are likely to be social origins that need joint social action to correct the situation. The government should developed sound policies to regulate and control social groups.

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