Handbook of Medical Sociology, Sixth Edition

Chloe E. Bird, Peter Conrad, Allen M. Fremont, And Stefan Timmermans

Description

Composed entirely of specially commissioned chapters by many outstanding scholars in medical sociology, this edition reflects important changes in the study of health and illness. In addition to updated and reconceived chapters on the impacts of gender, race, and inequality on health, this volume has new chapters on topics that include:

• social networks, neighborhoods, and social capital
• disability
• dying and "the right to die"
• health disparities
• the growing influence of the pharmaceutical industry
• the Internet
• evidence-based medicine and quality of care
• health social movements
• genetics
• religion, spirituality, and health

Sujets

• Medical
• Médecine
• Sociology
• Ethics
• Health

Informations

• Publié par: Vanderbilt University Press
• Date de parution: 29 novembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780826517227
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

H A N D B O O K O F MEDICAL SOCIOLOGY Sixth Edition

Chloe E. Bird, Peter Conrad, Allen M. Fremont, and Stefan Timmermans Editors

Handbook of Medical Sociology

H A N D B O O K O F MEDICAL SOCIOLOGY

Sixth Edition

CHLOE E. BIRD, PETER CONRAD, ALLEN M. FREMONT, AND STEFAN TIMMERMANS EDITORS

Vanderbilt University Press Nashville

© 2010 by Vanderbilt University Press Nashville, Tennessee 37235 All rights reserved First printing 2010

His book is printed on acid-free paper. Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

andbook of medical sociology. — 6th ed. / edited by Chloe E. Bird . . . [et al.]. p. ; cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8265-1720-3 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8265-1721-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Social medicine—andbooks, manuals, etc. I. Bird, Chloe E. [DNLM: 1. Social Medicine. 2. Sociology, Medical. WA 31 236 2010] RA418.29 2010 362.1—dc22 2009047976

Contents

Preface to the Sixth Edition vii Chloe E. Bird, Peter Conrad, Allen M. Fremont, and Stefan Timmermans

Part I Social Contexts and Health Disparities

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Social Conditions as Fundamental Causes of Health Inequalities 3 Bruce Link and Jo Phelan

Social Capital and Health 18 Ichiro Kawachi

Why Education Is the Key to Socioeconomic Differentials in Health 33 Catherine E. Ross and John Mirowsky

Understanding Gender and Health: Old Patterns, New Trends, and Future Directions 52 Patricia P. Rieker, Chloe E. Bird, and Martha E. Lang

Social Support, Sex, and Food: Social Networks and Health 75 Gina S. Lovasi, jimi adams, and Peter S. Bearman

Race, Social Contexts, and Health: Examining Geographic Spaces and Places 92 David T. Takeuchi, Emily Walton, and ManChui Leung

The Latino Health Paradox: Looking at the Intersection of Sociology and Health 106 Tamara Dubowitz, Lisa M. Bates, and Dolores Acevedo-Garcia

A Life-Course Approach to the Study of Neighborhoods and Health 124 Stephanie A. Robert, Kathleen A. Cagney, and Margaret M. Weden

Part II Health Trajectories and Experiences

9

The Social Construction of Illness: Medicalization and Contested Illness 147 Kristin K. Barker

10 The Patient’s Experience of Illness 163  David A. Rier

11 The Internet and the Experience of Illness 179  Peter Conrad and Cheryl Stults

12

The Sociology of Disability: Historical Foundations and Future Directions 192 Gary L. Albrecht

13 Death, Dying, and the Right to Die 210  Clive Seale

Part III Health-Care Organization, Delivery, and Impact

14 Gender and Health Care 229  Renee R. Anspach

15 Institutional Change and the Organization of Health Care: The Dynamics of “Muddling Through”249  Peter Mendel and W. Richard Scott

16 Health-Care Professions, Markets, and Countervailing Powers 270  Donald W. Light

17

The Sociological Concomitants of the Pharmaceutical Industry and Medications 290 John Abraham

18 Evidence-Based Medicine: Sociological Explorations 309  Stefan Timmermans

19 The Sociology of Quality and Safety in Health Care: Studying a Movement and Moving Sociology 324  Teun Zuiderent-Jerak and Marc Berg

Part IV Crosscutting Issues

20

Religion, Spirituality, Health, and Medicine: Sociological Intersections341 Wendy Cadge and Brian Fair

21 Health, Security, and New Biological Threats: Reconfigurations of Expertise363  Stephen J. Collier and Andrew Lakoff

22

Health Social Movements: History, Current Work, and Future Directions380 Phil Brown, Crystal Adams, Rachel Morello-Frosch, Laura Senier, and Ruth Simpson

23 The Application of Biomarker Data to the Study of Social Determinants of Health395  Regina A. Shih, Meenakshi M. Fernandes, and Chloe E. Bird

24 Gene-Environment Interaction and Medical Sociology418  Sara Shostak and Jeremy Freese

25

Biotechnology and the Prolongation of Life: A Sociological Critique435 Bryan S. Turner

Contributors447

Index449

Preface to the Sixth Edition

Cloe E. Bird, Peter Conrad,

Allen M. Fremont, and Stefan Timmermans

A revision ofhe Handbook of Medical Sociology has appeared about once a decade since its origi- nal publication in 1963. Each edition was com- prised of new, specially commissioned chapters reviewing or developing some aspects of medical sociology. As the îeld of medical sociology grew and diversiîed, new topics were included and older ones updated, and others continued to be represented by previous editions. When a new editorial team took over the îfth edition (Bird, Conrad, and Fremont 2000), we attempted to maintain the spirit of the earlier editions. We continue here with the sixth edition, reecting some changes and new vistas in medical sociology, while updating and reconîguring some peren- nially important topics. In 2009 we celebrated the îftieth year of the Medical Sociology Section of the American Socio- logical Association. He section has been among the three largest of the ASA’s nearly thirty sections. Medical sociology continues to be an expanding and vibrant intellectual îeld: it is impossible for a single volume to fully represent all the changes and new directions, as well as include the disci- pline’s core topics. For this edition, we asked au- thors to go beyond reviews of the literature and focus on a number of key questions and issues. His edition reects important changes in the study of health and illness. In addition to updated and reconceived chapters on the social impacts of gender, race, and socioeconomic inequalities on health, new chapters examine the inuence of social networks, neighborhoods, and social capi- tal. His conîguration reects new directions for medical sociology, and increased interest in how

social connections aect health and illness. While we included two chapters on social perspectives on illness experience in the previous edition, we here oer a section that more deeply examines ill- ness experience and trajectories and emphasizes social constructionist approaches. In addition to focusing on macro issues like medicalization and illness contestation, the chapters in the section look at the subjective experience of illness, both as this research tradition has developed in sociol- ogy and in light of the profound impact of the Internet. We also oer chapters on sociological perspectives on disability and a sociological ren- dering of dying and the right to die, an increas- ingly salient issue. He înal two sections address new topics that have increased in signiîcance or that merit an up- date since the last edition, as well as some classic sociological matters. Chapters in the third sec- tion recount shifts in the organization of health- care delivery and in the balance of power among institutional actors seeking to control it. Hese chapters pay particular attention to develop- ments in the decade since the last edition of the handbook, including new eorts to reform the system, with special emphasis on emerging actors that warrant sociological attention, such as phar- maceutical companies. Additional chapters in the third section highlight the growing pervasiveness and impact of evolving models of care and policy that are driven by a conviction that greater use of evidence-based medicine and far more emphasis on care quality and safety are crucial to improving care and health outcomes. Chapters in the înal section of the book focus on recent and expand-

vii

ing medical sociological interests, as well as on new and future directions for medical sociologi- cal work. ealth social movements and genetics, while very dierent, are not only aecting our un- derstandings of illness and disease but also becom- ing signiîcant sociological research concerns. He issues surrounding religion and spirituality as they relate to health, while not nearly as well devel- oped in our discipline, seem to be returning to the scene. Medical sociologists, along with sociologists of science, continue to shed light on the eects of biotechnology in medicine—its genetic-environ- ment interactions, the impact of biotechnological interventions, or, since 9/11, the threats of bioter- rorism. Topics like these may be a harbinger of the future, when medical sociologists may increasingly examine not just how social and cultural organiza- tion aect health and illness, but how interactions among culture, organization, and technology con- tribute to our understanding of and interventions for health and illness. It is likely that sociological research will continue to be eclectic and diverse in its approaches, yet as our own research technolo- gies improve, we may be increasingly able to link sociological factors with changing biomarkers as we attempt to better understand the development of illness and disease. As rich and wide-ranging as we believe the topics in this edition to be, as in earlier editions we do not, for example, delve deeply into issues of mental health. We do not include a chapter on national health policy, since the proposals and changes would likely be out of date by the book’s publication. For benchmarks in areas not included in this sixth edition, we recommend examining the 2000 edition, consulting, for example, chap- ters on the impact of the environment on health, doctor-patient relations, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), and medical educa- tion, as well as the several chapters on the inter- disciplinary potentials of medical sociology and its related health-focused social science disciplines.

Part I

He eight chapters of Part I, “Social Contexts and ealth Disparities,” address a long-standing focus of medical sociology, the role of social factors in

viiiof Medical Sociology Handbook

health and illness, here focusing on many of the ways in which social inequality and social con- texts shape health and create and recreate health disparities. Taken together, these chapters provide a nuanced perspective on the persistent social pat- terning of health and longevity. In Chapter 1, Bruce Link and Jo Phelan ad- dress an issue central to medical sociology: how and why social and economic inequality is a fundamental cause of health disparities. His so- ciological perspective on health disparities was initially developed in response to the risk-factor approach, which directs attention to proximal causes of ill health—modiîable risk factors. Link and Phelan argue that the unequal distribution of socioeconomic resources inevitably leads to health inequalities as those with more resources use them to obtain and act on new and better informa- tion—for example, by consuming healthier diets and avoiding known hazards—in order to protect and improve their health. Consequently, interven- tions aimed at the proximal causes of health dis- parities will never be suïcient to close the gaps. In Chapter 2, Ichiro Kawachi brings the so- cial world into the discussion by shifting the fo- cus from the individual to the community as he articulates the impact of social capital on health. e presents the application of resources as a group-level construct, where to a certain extent individuals perceive the world and act collectively. As advantages thus accrue and ow across net- works, one’s network becomes another resource that provides, among other things, information, perceived eïcacy, and norms for behavior, all of which can directly and indirectly impact health. His focus introduces some of the many ways in which opportunities are structured, building from Granovetter’s concept of “the strength of weak ties” (Granovetter 1973) and Coleman’s work on “informal social control” (Coleman 1990). In Chapter 3, Catherine Ross and John Mirowsky make the case that education, operat- ing as both human capital and a commodity, is the key to socioeconomic dierentials in health. Although one might argue that education con- tributes to both in that it shapes our social net- works. Ross and Mirowsky note that most U.S. policy makers do not view education as a means to improve population health, despite evidence

that it is eective in this arena. He authors also consider evidence that health care cannot and does not improve population health. Patricia Rieker, Chloe Bird, and Martha Lang in Chapter 4 examine the patterns and trends in gender dierences in health and consider how so- cial and biologic factors interact to produce para- doxical dierences in men’s and women’s health. Hey present constrained choice as a conceptual framework for understanding how the social structure and associated contexts in which we live shape our opportunities to pursue a healthy life, exploring the ways structural constraints narrow the opportunities and choices available to indi- viduals. He authors also oer constrained choice as an alternative framework that goes beyond socioeconomic disparities and discrimination to explain health disparities, including those at the intersection of race, class, and gender. Gina Lovasi, jimi adams, and Peter Bearman provide a refreshing and strikingly dierent take in Chapter 5 on the ways in which social networks shape health. Whereas Kawachi focused on social capital as a network or community resource, Lo- vasi, adams, and Bearman examine more broadly how and why our social ties with individuals and organizations aect our health. Hey illustrate the role of social networks by focusing on social support, sexual behavior, and food consumption as each relates to health. Moreover, they consider the complexity of both assessing network eects and using networks to promote health. His chap- ter also brings us back to a consideration of how contexts aect the impact of networks on health. DavidTakeuchi,EmilyWalton,andMan- Chui Leung explore in Chapter 6 the role of segregation as a social process that contributes to dierential exposure to particular environ- ments and contexts, weaving together many of the themes touched upon in preceding chapters and introducing the concept of place. In particu- lar, they consider how opportunity structures and community structures inuence health in part by shaping social processes—again raising the issue of how contexts and networks interact. In Chapter 7, Tamara Dubowitz, Lisa Bates, and Dolores Acevedo-Garcia shed light on the long-standing “Latino health paradox,” the rec- ognition that ispanics/Latinos have higher life

expectancy than would be expected given their disproportionate representation among the poor. Dubowitz and colleagues consider how the so- ciopolitical context and patterns of migration contribute to health and discuss the role of im- migration and Latino ethnicity in shaping Latino health and go on to suggest ways that studies can better tease apart these factors by examining im- migrants and their acculturation. Finally, in Chapter 8, Stephanie Robert, Kath- leen Cagney, and Margaret Weden present a new way to think sociologically about neighborhoods and place eects as they bring together the con- cepts of life course and neighborhood, articulating new questions and approaches for understanding the ways neighborhood eects on health may vary over the life course both of individual residents and of neighborhoods themselves. He authors in- corporate an appreciation of how neighborhoods change and age over time not only in what may be predictable ways but also, more importantly, in ways that would be expected to impact the health and well-being of their residents. Taken together, these chapters cover a broad and diverse literature on how individual lives are socially patterned in ways that dierentially allo- cate opportunities and resources, which in turn patterns health and health disparities. Moreover, the authors consider from multiple perspectives how individual resources such as education, as well as network or community resources such as social capital, shape even the ability or skills to call upon and apply particular resources.

Part II

While the chapters in Part I focus on social factors related to the development of diseases in popula- tions and individuals, Part II, “ealth Trajectories and Experiences,” deals with the social construc- tion and meaning of illness. He îve chapters ad- dress the trajectory of illness, from its deînition to its experience to particular trajectory outcomes. He îrst three chapters take generally social con- structionist/interactionist perspectives about the meaning and experience of illness; the last two focus more on issues around particular aspects of potential trajectories, disability, and dying.

Preface to the Sixth Editionix