Synopses & Reviews
First published in 1981,
The Sociology of Health and Illness: Critical Perspectives has become an essential resource for anyone interested in health and health care.Fully updated, the eighth edition includes an all new section on the uninsured as well as 10 new readings examining topics such as the failures of health care reform, new trends in medicalization, the growing power of the drug industry and the determinants of media attention to disease. Provocative and wide-ranging,
The Sociology of Health and Illness continues to provide students with an integrated analysis of the most important issues regarding health care today.
About the Author
Peter Conrad is the Harry Coplan Professor of Social Sciences and Chair of the Health: Science, Society and Policy program at Brandeis University. He earned his doctorate from Boston University. The author of numerous books and journal articles on the sociology of health and illness, Dr. Conrad received the Leo G. Reeder Award from the American Sociological Association in 2004 for his distinguished contributions to medical sociology. His works include the award-winning
Deviance and Medicalization (written with J.W. Schneider), the co-edited
Handbook of Medical Sociology, Fifth Edition, and his newest book,
The Medicalization of Society, published in 2007.
Table of Contents
* = new to this edition Preface Acknowledgments General Introduction Part 1: The Social Production of Disease and Illness The Social Nature of Disease 1. Medical Measures and the Decline of Mortality John B. McKinlay and Sonia M. McKinlay
Who gets sick? The Unequal Social Distribution of Disease 2. Social class, Susceptibility and Sickness S. Leonard Syme and Lisa F. Berkman 3. Excess Mortality in Harlem Colin McCord and Harold P. Freeman 4. Gender Differences in Mortality: Causes and Variation in Different Societies Ingrid Waldron *5. Disease and Disadvantage in the United States and in England James Banks, Michael Marmot, Zoe Oldfield, James P. Smith
Our Sickening Social and Physical Environments 6. Popular Epidemiology: Community Response to Toxic Waste-induced Disease Phil Brown 7. Social Relationships and Health James S. House, Karl R. Landis, and Debra Umberson 8. Dying Alone: The Social Production of Urban Isolation Eric Klinenberg 9. Health Inequalities: Relative or Absolute Material Standards? Richard Wilkinson
The Social and Cultural Meanings of Illness 10. Anorexia Nervosa in Context Joan Jacobs Brumberg 11. AIDS and Stigma Gregory M. Herek *12. Whose Deaths Matter? Attention to Disease in the Mass Media Elizabeth Armstrong, Dan Carpenter, and Marie E. Hojnacki
The Experience of Illness 13. Self-Help Literature and the Making of An Illness Identity: The case of Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS) Kristin Barker 14. The Meanings of Medications: Another Look At Compliance Peter Conrad 15. The Remission Society Arthur W. Frank
Part 2: The Social Organization of Medical Care The Rise and Fall of the Dominance of Medicine 16. Professionalization, Monopoly, and the Structure of Medical Practice Peter Conrad and Joseph W. Schneider 17. Notes on the Decline of Midwives and The Rise of Medical Obstetricians Richard W. Wertz and Dorothy C. Wertz 18. The End of the Golden Age of Doctoring John B. Mckinlay and Lisa D. Marceau 19. Countervailing Power: The Changing Character of the Medical Profession in the United States Donald W. Light
Other Practitioners In and Out of Medicine 20. A Caring Dilemma: Womanhood and Nursing in Historical Perspective Susan Reverby *21. From Quackery to "Complementary" Medicine: The American Medical Profession Confronts Alternative Therapies Terri A. Winnick
Medical Industries 22. The Healthcare Industry: Where Is It taking Us? Arnold S. Relman *23. The ‘Pinking of Viagra Culture: Drug Industry Efforts to Create and Repackage Sex Drugs for Women Heather Hartley
Financing Medical Care *24. Why the United States Has No National Health Insurance: Stakeholder Mobilzation Against the Welfare State, 1945-1996 Jill Quadagno 25. Paying for Healthcare Thomas Bodenheimer and Kevin Grumbach 26. Doctoring as a Business: Money, Markets, and Managed Care Deborah A. Stone
System Failure: The Uninsured *27. Uninsured in America Gregory Weiss *28. Young, Sick, and Part-Time: The Vulnerability of Youth and the New American Job Market Susan Starr Sered and Rushika Fernandopulle
Medicine in Practice 29. The Struggle Between the Voice of Medicine and the Voice of the Lifeworld Elliot G. Mishler 30. Social Death as a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Stefan Timmermans 31. The Language of Case Presentation Renee R. Anspach 32. ‘Choosing Later about Dialysis Treatment Near the End of Life. Ann J. Russ, Janet K. Shim, and Sharon R. Kaufman
Dilemmas of Medical Technology 33. The Artificial Heart: How Close Are We and Do We Want to Get There? Paul D. Simmons 34. Issues in the Application of High Cost Medical Technology: The Case of Organ Transplantation Nancy G. Kutner 35. A Mirage of Genes Peter Conrad
Part 3: Contemporary Critical Debates The Relevance of Risk 36. The Prevalence of Risk Factors Among Women in the United States Robert A. Hahn, Steven M. Teutsch, Adele L. Franks, Man-Huei Chang, and Elizabeth E. Lloyd 37. Risk as a Moral Danger: The Social and Political Functions of Risk Discourse in Public Health Deborah Lupton
The Medicalization of American Society 38. Medicine as an Institution of Social Control Irving Kenneth Zola *39. The Shifting Engines of Medicalization Peter Conrad
Rationing Medical Care 40. Rationing Medical Progress: The Way to Affordable Health Care Daniel Callahan 41. The Trouble with Rationing Arnold S. Relman
Part 4: Toward Alternatives in Health Care Community Initiatives 42. Politicizing Health Care John McKnight 43. Helping Ourselves: The Limits and Potential of Self-Help Ann Withorn 44. Illness and the Internet Empowerment: Writing and Reading Breast Cancer in Cyberspace Victoria Pitts
Comparative Health Polices 45. Comparative Models of "Health Care" Systems Donald W. Light 46. Health Care Reform: Lessons from Canada Raisa Berlin Deber 47. The British National Health Service: Continuity and Change Jonathan Gabe
Prevention, Movements, and Social Change 48. A Case of Refocusing Upstream: The Political Economy of Illness John B. McKinlay *49. Embodied Health Movements: New Approaches to Social Movements in Health Phil Brown, Stephan Zavestoski, Sabrina McCormick, Brian Mayer, Rachel Morello-Frosch, and Rebecca Altman