Medicine, Health and Society

Hannah Bradby’s research on how ethnicity and racism intervene in the social relations of health has been published in various journals including ‘Social Science and Medicine’ and ‘Sociological Research Online’.  She co-edits the journal ‘Ethnicity and Health’ and is the ‘Sociology of Health and Illness’ monograph series editor. Hannah has taught both medics and sociologists at the University of Warwick since 2000, employing various representations of health, illness and suffering including written (memoire, letters, reportage, fiction, clinical notes, empirical research) and spoken forms (evidence from clinicians, patients and former patients, in various languages, and sometimes mediated by trained interpreters). She has worked on the core medical school curriculum and special study modules and has collaborated with students to publish books of their own sociological work, both written and photographic. Building on observations by the late Meg Stacey (the first female professor at the University of Warwick) on medical sociology’s lack of attention to war as a public health problem Hannah co-edited (with Gillian Hundt) a collection entitled ‘Global Perspectives on War, Gender and Health’ (2010, Avebury). ‘Medical Sociology: An introduction’ (2009, Sage) seeks to interpret sociological criticism of medicine and insights into the experience of illness for medical students.

Prologue: Sociology, Medicine and Medical Sociology
Introduction
Medical Sociology and Its Relationship with Sociology
Theory and Application
Sociology and Medicine
Interdisciplinarity and Multidisciplinarity
References
Introducing the Sociology of Medicine, Health and Society
Social Theory and the Sociology of Health and Medicine
Introduction
Parsons and Functionalism
Criticism of Parsons′ Idealized Type
Theories of Conflict and Political Economy
Inequalities and Social Stratification
Interactionism
Phenomenology
Modernity and Post-Modernity
Social Constructionism
Post-Structuralism and Structuralism
Criticism of Constructionism
Conclusion
References
Health Inequalities
Introduction
Theory and Inequality
Inequity and Inequality
Measurement of Inequality
The Pattern of Health Inequalities
Causes of Inequalities
Healthcare and Inequalities
Global Inequality
Conclusion
Women, Gender and Feminism
Introduction
Feminism
Gendered Visibility
Gendered Polarity and Theorizing Difference
Reconceptualizing Gender
Undoing Polarities
Health Inequalities
Morbidity, Gender and the Effect of Work
Conclusion
References
Ethnicity, Racism and Difference
Introduction
Background - UK
Background - USA
Sociology of Race Relations
Ethnicity and Health Inequalities
Mental Health
Conclusion
References
Bodies, Pain and Suffering
Introduction
The Sociological Body
Dissecting the Body
Cultural Bodies
Biotechnological Bodies
Embodiment
Bodies and Disabilities
Bodies and Narrative
Mute Bodies
Meta-Narrative and Suffering
Conclusion
References
The Workings of Medicine
Introduction
Background
Medicine′s Golden Age
Medical Power
Medical Imperialism
Proletarianization, Deprofessionalization and Corporatization
Challenging Medicine: Efficacy, Efficiency, Accessibility
Efficacy, Equity and Efficiency
Managers, Managerialism and Markets
Challenging Equity
Has the NHS Improved?
The Doctor-Patient Relationship in a Regulatory Framework
The Legal Challenge
Consumerism in Medicine
Specialization
Alternative Medical Practitioners
Medical Tourism
Medicalization in a Digital Era
Conclusion
References
Conclusion
Introduction
The Practice of Medicine
Medical Encounters
Biotechnology
Ethics and Expectations of Biotechnological Innovation
The Culture of Bioethics
Global Health
Medical Migration
Global Suffering and Sociology
Conclusion
References
Glossary of Terms