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HGA102 SOCIOLOGY B 2017

ASSESSEMENT TASK 2

Sociology is a unique and sophisticated field of study which allows the exploration of how society is structured and how it can be improved. It also allows us to improve on the mistakes in history and prevents them from occurring again. For these aforementioned reasons, sociologists apply key concepts to tackle social issues. An example of this concept is sociological imagination where issues can be analysed from different angles. This concept was devised by American sociologist C. Wright Mills (Mills, 1959). It allows problems to be separated and viewed from a standpoint of personal troubles and public issues. It is a practical means of relinquishing the assumptions that private troubles and public issues are isolated but rather associating private troubles on a larger scale where it can or has developed into a public issue. A prime example of this is when sociologist Emile Durkheim was heavily researching into suicide, which was seen as an immensely personal issue. After studying patterns and trends, sociology brought a new perspective into suicide and explained how social patterns in rates of suicide differs according to social groups and societies. This shows how powerful social forces are and the way they exist underneath lives as individuals. This then further establishes the correlation of personal troubles stemming from public issues and structural problems (Jackman, 2017). Further, as for sociological perspectives, these have been described as ‘lenses’ to view the world with. Advantages of these include the ease of viewing society at a macro level and to analyse the bonds between them. It also encompasses a multitude of factors such as historical, cultural, structural and critical factors (Germov, 1997). This essay aims to outline inequalities in health from a sociological point of view and strives to apply sociological imagination and sociological perspectives to devise solutions to improve it. For the example of this essay, the topic of health has been selected due to its broad scope and its symbiosis with sociology. Health also is an issue that affects everyone, and on a large scale. Sociologist Emile Durkheim also pointed out that if larger-scale patterns in behaviour has been identified, it no longer remains to be seen as an individual issue but rather a social one. Some aspects of health that been a pertinent issue included obesity, sexually transmitted

infections (STI) and mental health. Other areas that have been subject to social inequality are access to healthcare, education and preventive medicine. Reasons for this can be explained by social determinants (Marmot, 2005). Such determinants include income, education levels and geographic distributions. By applying sociological perspectives into addressing these issues, one can change their outlook on the problems by critically reviewing it. Further, one can also accept the premise of the human race to be extreme diverse, as well as the world. This then leads one to look apply the concept of sociological imagination. An example of a sociological perspective when applied to health would be ‘the Marxist perspective of health and illness’. A fundamental assumption of this perspective would be that material production being the most important of all human activity. This then leads to health problems and diseases as by-product of the rapid ramping up of industrial activities to feed the needs of a modern society (Crinson, 2007). This also leads to social inequality when capitalism peaks and results in an uneven distribution of wealth and unequal opportunities. Besides the aforementioned reasons, socioeconomic statuses of subjects are also key to understanding inequality. People with greater socioeconomic statuses have easier access to resources like knowledge, money, prestige and connections (Germov, 2005). On the other end of the spectrum, people with poor housing and employment conditions are more susceptible to illnesses and a lower quality of health. Sociology aims to grasp these disparities and improve lives. This essay will reinforce the importance of exploring sociological imagination and adopting a sociological perspective to address social problems. Under the scope of health in an Australian context, the deadliest diseases are lung cancer, coronary heart disease, dementia and Alzheimer disease and stroke (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2016). These diseases are exacerbated by factors well within the governments’ control. Some of these ‘risk factors’ include having a high body mass, physical inactivity and the use of tobacco and alcohol. If we take a step back and put sociological imagination into play, we can separate the health issues and treat them as a public issue, we can see what more can be done to curb this statistic and ways to improve. Rather than seeing the use of tobacco and alcohol as a personal trouble, governments can see this as a public issue and contain it. Should this matter be contained, it can cost the government greatly (Collins and Lapsley, 2008). The total social costs of tobacco related illnesses exceed $31 billion and over $15 billion for alcohol abuse. Due to these immense costs, the Australian government has rolled out a unique tax structure that compounds annually at 12.5% which makes Australia is the most costly country to purchase cigarettes and the costs are still rising

(McCann, 2017). However, this has proven to be effective as the smoking rates has almost halved from 25% in 1991 to 13.3% in 2013 (Department of Health, 2017). On top of the duty excise, anti-tobacco advertising changed the packaging of tobacco with graphic images and also standardised the packaging of tobacco to eliminate the design factor to attract smokers. This is a prime example of showcasing the merits of applying sociological perspective on a large scale. This issue needed to be taken as a public issue due to the vast range of impacts ranging from an environmental issue to a psycho-social problem (Schaefer, 1979). As for the inequality, the rates of daily smokers are skewered towards the lowest socioeconomic areas, with rates 5.7 times for prison entrants, 2.7 times for single people with dependent children and 2.6 times for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Australians (Schaefer, 1979). A study by the Australian Medical Association cited a reason for this trend is that the abuse of substances (alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs) is a mean of subduing the pain of social and economic realities temporarily. This is unfortunate as it leads to a vicious cycle and brings the people from the lowest socioeconomic areas back to the starting point and also increases the inequality gap (Australian Medical Association, 2007). Another pressing health issue in Australia is a high body mass, as of 2016, over 60% of Australians are overweight or obese. Obesity contributes to a plethora of other health issues especially when considering that over 45% of Australians are either insufficiently inactive or completely inactive. Similar to the inequality present with tobacco use, obesity and being overweight is most prevalent in adults living in the lowest socioeconomic areas and with the Indigenous population. When this issue is viewed as a personal trouble, one can simply increase one’s physical activity or make changes to one’s diet (Schultz, 2016). When this is viewed from a perspective of a public issue, governments and societies can be seen as losing to something that is not a disease, but instead a by-product of a lifestyle of overeating and inactivity (Pollack, 2013). Further, this deviates from goals of governments to prevent illnesses and health inequalities. For these reasons, governments took on an immense task of ramping up the health of Australians by campaigns and public education. Examples of these includes posters and charts for ease of interpretation, the implementation of ‘health stars’ on food packaging and tools for tracking progress in the forms of websites and mobile phone applications. These efforts can be seen to have caused a dip in the age-standardized death rates from 1907 to 2013 by 71% and 76% for males and females respectively. Further, as of 2015, over 85% of Australians over the age of 15 ‘feel’ healthy, this is significantly higher than the global average of only 69% (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2016). This

can be seen as a reinforcement of the merits of sociology, specifically when the theory of sociological imagination is applied. Inequality has plagued society for centuries and is almost impossible to eradicate, sociologists and economists have only managed to shrink the gap at best. In terms of health, inequality has led to catastrophic effects. These include people die younger, have worse health based on where they reside, genetics, employment and even parental income (Australian Medical Association, 2007). Inequality is a serious issue for any society due to the fact citizens have an unequal ability to take part in social and economic opportunity. This leads to an erosion of a close-knit community. Further, this also leads to fundamental economic problems whereby resources are unevenly distributed and more concentrated within a select few. When these inequalities peak, it becomes barrier to citizens accessing daily healthcare and even preventive healthcare. This can even snowball and lead to higher incidents of chronic and other types of diseases. The National Centre for Social and Economic modelling (NATSEM) deduced that over 500,000 Australians could have avoided chronic illnesses should the inequality gap have been less severe (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2016). Not only was this a personal trouble but cost the public over $4 billion in welfare payments. Examples of this show the severity of inequality as personal troubles and even public issues. Within this study also presented how this inequality took the greatest toll on the lowest household income groups. The lowest income groups had the highest percentage of chronic illnesses – heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

After highlighting the by-products of inequality and by addressing social problems superficially, one can see value in adopting sociology and its core concepts. This essay has shown that by applying principles of sociological perspectives, it can assist provide the truths of “common sense” and weigh the opportunities and restraints that exists in life. Furthermore, these principles allow us to navigate and live in a diverse world (Macionis, 2015). Furthermore, sociological perspectives allow us to understand and accept that sociology encompasses every aspect of our lives and that social forces are at work all the time. As for sociological imagination, the essence of this theory allows sociologist to look at things in hindsight. Due to this, we get to learn from past blunders and victories without the constraints of intensive research or studies. Other values of exploring the relationship between personal troubles and public issues are the staunch reminder that there is simply no objectivity in

sociology, therefore we have the ability to theorise our lives and the world around us to critically observe. This provides academics, sociologists and theorists with a wealth of information from observing and gaining insight into various sociological phenomenon. In a nutshell, due to the vast inequalities in our lives, sociology has benefited the vast majority by studying trends and patterns and coming up with solutions. Sociologists have benefited by weighing in how social and historical conditions influence personal troubles and the daily struggles in human life. This has illustrated that sociological imagination and sociological perspectives are a very important skill and insight. 1847 Words

Reference List

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Macionis, J. (2015), Society: The Basics 13th Edition. London, Pearson. Marmot, M. (2005) Social Determinants of Health Inequalities, Public Health. 365 Available at: http://www.who.int/social_determinants/strategy/Marmot-Social%20determinants%20of %20health%20inqualities.pdf?ua=1. McCann, J. (01/09/2017), Why the Cigarette Tax Won’t Stop People From Smoking, (news.com.au), http://www.news.com.au/finance/money/costs/why-the-cigarette-tax-wontstop-people-from-smoking/news-story/c35e7453ae1db1b1bece8aa46e68ac21. (Accessed: 14/09/2017). Schaefer, H. (March, 1979) Smoking as a Psychological and Social Problem, (US National Library of Medicine), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/110384. (Accessed: 14/09/2017). Schultz, J. (2017) Reimagining Obesity, Quest, 69:2, 236-255, DOI: 10.1080/00336297.2016.1218777. The Department of Health (03/07/2017), Tobacco Control Key Facts and Figures,(Australian Government), http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/tobacco-kff. (Accessed: 14/09/2017)....