Thinking Sociologically About Health and Illness PDF

January 7, 2025 SOC 248: Health, Illness and Society Colin Hastings, PhD Thinking sociologically and intersectionally about health and illness Overview Welcome! Overview of course syllabus Organizing groups for in-class activities...

January 7, 2025 SOC 248: Health, Illness and Society Colin Hastings, PhD Thinking sociologically and intersectionally about health and illness Overview Welcome! Overview of course syllabus Organizing groups for in-class activities Break Short introductory lecture The sociological imagination The biomedical and social models of health Intersectionality Discussion Overview of course syllabus The sociological imagination Sociology as a way of knowing Looking for connections between individual experiences (biography), history, and society / social structure “The vivid awareness of the relationship between experience and the wider society.” Personal troubles vs. public issues Biomedical vs. Social Models of Health and Illness Biomedicine: Dominant form of medical practice in Canada, based on the application of natural sciences (biology, human genetics) to clinical practice Individualistic Illness as a malfunction of an organism due to infection, trauma, curative Biomedical vs. Social Models of Health and Illness Social models of health Health is more than the absence of disease. It is a state of complete physical, mental, and social wellbeing. Disease mediated by social conditions and affected by the social determinants of health. How can we think about health, disease, and health care as social phenomena? Health Headlines How can we think about health, disease, and health care as social phenomena? Social drivers / determinants of health and illness Systems of caring for and responding to illness are inherently social Understandings of illness and health are socially and culturally shaped  1. Underestimates links between people’s material circumstances and illness 2. Victim blaming Sociological critiques of the medical model: 3. Fallacy of specific etiology 4. Objectification 5. Biological determinism  1. Underestimates links between people’s material circumstances and illness Sociological critiques of the 2. Victim blaming medical model: What have these 5 3. Fallacy of specific etiology points looked like during covid-19? Apply the article 4. Objectification (“more exposed and less protected”) in your response. 5. Biological determinism