Social causes of health and disease chapter 1 and 2 notes PDF

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cockerham chapter 1 and 2 notes...

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Social causes of health and disease (chapters 1 and 2) Discussion questions: Cockerham: Wilkinson proposes that class divisions in society create poor health. Coburn says social determinants such as income inequity are within a broader set of social determinants that cannot all be tied to strict definitions of class. What matters more? Class or wealth, when it comes to understanding health? How does Cockerham define lifestyle? Why does this matter to health, and what factors greatly control and influence lifestyle Chapter 1: The Social Causation of Health and Disease  Stress, poverty, low socioeconomic status, unhealthy lifestyles, unpleasant living and work conditions = social variables - accepted by general public as factors of illness o Excluding stress - not supported by research literature  Research - minimizes relevance of social factors o Secondary influences on health and illness, not direct causes  Being poor - greater exposure to something that will make a person sick; NOT bring on sickness itself  Most diseases have social connections o Social context can shape the risk of exposure, susceptibility of host, disease course and outcome  Socioeconomic status - lower status have higher risk  Book - social causes have direct causal effect on physical health and illness  Smoking isn't random, indv decision, independent of social structure influences o Higher class adopted and abandoned first  Biomedical model: every disease has a specific pathogenic origin, treatment = removing or controlling its cause using medical procedures o Ex. Drug to alleviate or cure symptoms o --> sickness = regarded as straightforward physical event in western society (doesn't include social life)  Improvements in living conditions (diet, housing, public sanitation, personal hygiene) = important in eliminating threat of infectious diseases

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"problems of living" - incl class, living conditions, social captial Income can reverse biological risk (ex. Predisposed to low birth weight) Low income --> poor education, less healthy living situations, inadequate employment, less quality medical care, poor diets Low income + diabetes - worse diet, little exercise, inadequate medical care Class boundaries (ex. grocery stores in neighbourhoods) --> health boundaries HIV/AIDS - class as a social determinant of health Poor generally more afflicted than the rich

Chapter 2: Theorizing about Health and Disease  Structural functionalism - Emile Durkheim o Able to explain why social change was needed o Weakness = inexact about how change occurred or why individuals facilitated the process; doesn't account for conflict and change  "social facts"  A person's health can be negatively affected through stressful conditions requiring responses to social situations not necessarily of the individual's own choosing  Conflict theory - individual behaviour determined from above; group or class conflict  Structural-functionalism abandoned  Symbolic interaction and agency side of social constructionism adopted  Social structural variables correlated; casually related; proxies for true causes lying closer to disease o Direct effect of social structures often ignored even though they may be responsible for causing the health problem under investigation  Need a more comprehensive approach to research in medical sociology, epidemiology, etc....