Sociology of Health & Illness

Sociology has been variously defined since Auguste Comte coined the term in 1838. Simply, sociology is the study of human society and social problems. Sociology is the scientific study of social relations, institutions, and society. In addition, sociology can be defined as the scientific study of the dynamics of society and their intricate connection to patterns of behaviour. It focuses on social structure and how the structures interact to modify human behaviour, actions, opportunities, and how the patterns of social existence engender social problems. Social institutions include kinship, economic, political, education, and religious institutions. The institutions are like pillars that hold up society because they are the constituent parts of the social system (society). These parts are interdependent and interrelated with specialized functions towards the survival of the society. For quite some time, the sociology of health and medicine has been an important specialty of sociology. Over the past decades, there has been an active dialogue, not only within general sociology, but also within other scientific fields, most notably medicine and, more recently, social policy research and economics. This has enriched the methodological and theoretical approaches available for the sociology of health and medicine.

This book offers a critical account on the impact of social change on the experience of health and illness. It also examines the different sociological perspectives that have been used to analyze health matters. Health and medicine are key areas of sociological specialization, but in the face of rapid global challenges, they are changing. The need for change is becoming more and more urgent and the relevance of some of the traditional approaches, frameworks and theoretical perspectives should be evaluated. The aim of this book is to reflect on this issue and to explore what could be done in response to scientific and societal developments. The historical focus of sociology is on social problems in human society. Social problems include health problems, crime, deviance, violence, poverty, inequality, population problems, delinquency, and institutional instability. Social forces such as modernization and industrialization marked the beginning of unprecedented social alteration, especially since the beginning of the eighteenth century. This social change led to a number of problems as a result of changes in the relations of production.