Week 3 - Health and Illness

1)​ What is biopolitics? It’s the way that governments, institutions, and societies regulate and control human life. It’s about how power shapes decisions related to life and death, like vaccination policies, reproductive rights, or public health measures. EX.: During the COVID-19 pandemic, govern...

1)​ What is biopolitics? It’s the way that governments, institutions, and societies regulate and control human life. It’s about how power shapes decisions related to life and death, like vaccination policies, reproductive rights, or public health measures. EX.: During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments imposed lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccine policies to control the spread of the virus. 2)​ What’s an example of medical pluralism in today’s society? It’s the coexistence of different medical systems and healing practice within a society. For example, in many countries, people use both western medicine and alternative medicine. A cancer patient, for instance, may receive chemo while using herbal meds to manage side effects. 3)​ What are norms and how are they important? How do they relate to health? Norms are unwritten rules and expectations that guide behavior in society. They help maintain order and influence how people act in different situations. Some norms related to health are hygiene norms like washing your hands and covering your mouth when coughing, and dietary norms, because what’s considered health or unhealthy varies across cultures 4)​ How is stigma related to illness? Stigma is a negative label or discrimination against a person or a group of people based on a certain trait. In healthcare, stigma leads to shame, social exclusion, or lack of treatment. For example, people with depression or anxiety may be judged as weak or lazy, which may cause people to feel ashamed and avoid seeking medical help. Illness, health, medical vs social models of disability What we think of a healthy or “abled” person is socially constructed. Medical view -​ to be disabled is to be impaired by some pathological state if body or mind -​ these impairments should be fixed or changed by medical treatments, even when it doesn’t cause pain or illness -​ critics say that the medical view look at what “is wrong” with the person, not what the person needs Social view -​ disability is due to a lack of social accomodations for body types and mental particularities Theoretical perspectives on health, illness, and medical care Structural functionalism -​ good health is considered the normal, the desirable -​ good health allows a person to be active and productive, which benefits the society -​ illness is a form of deviance that threatens the ability of society to functioning -​ the ill adopt a “sick role”, allowing them to withdraw temporarily from society while they recover The sick role It allows the ill person to step away from their normal obligations while they recover. In this perspective, illness is not just a personal experience, but a social one. The rights of the sick role include an exemption from normal responsibilities and the ill person is not blamed for their condition, while the obligations include seeking medical help and cooperating with the healthcare providers. A person performs the sick role correctly by acknowledging their illness, seeking treatment, and showing a desire to recover. Society expects ill people to behave in certain ways that align with the illness. If a person fails to adopt a sick role in a socially accepted way, they may face social disapproval or stigma. For example, if a person claims to be sick but is seen engaging in activities that don’t align with illness, they might be viewed as lazy or dishonest. People with chronic diseases and invisible disabilities often struggle because they don’t fit the traditional sick role. Conflict theory -​ Health and medical services are “goods” that are unequally distributed among different social groups -​ Health inequalities are result of social inequalities, exposing vulnerable populations to harm and difficulting access to medical services -​ Problems in the delivery of healthcare are caused by the capitalist economy -​ People struggle over scarce resource Symbolic interactionism -​ Health and illness vary from one society to another, they are social constructions -​ What constitutes health or sickness varies from culture to culture -​ Crises in health care are socially constructed and can be used to promote certain political objectives Social determinants of health The relationship between social, economic, and political factors and health outcomes