Sociology › Section S · Health and medicine › Topic S.1
The social construction of health
A virus or a broken bone is physical, but what a condition means, who believes the patient and how others respond are decided by people. Medical sociology studies that social side of health, and it starts with the idea that health is partly socially constructed.
In this topic
- Same diagnosis, different lives
- Disease, illness and sickness
- What "socially constructed" means
- Conrad and Barker's three findings
- Cultural meaning and stigma
- Contested illnesses
- The illness experience
- How medical knowledge is built
- Worked example: ME/CFS through three lenses
- Worked example: whose heart attack?
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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