The Sociology of Healthcare

SARAH EARLE is Lecturer in Health and Social Care at The Open University, UK. She has published in the areas of the sociology of health and health care education and the sociology of reproduction and sexuality. GAYLE LETHERBY is Professor of Sociology at the University of Plymouth, UK. Her interests are eclectic and include issues of method, methodology and epistemology, reproductive and non/parental identities, working and learning in higher education.

Dedication.- Acknowledgements.- Thinking Sociologically about Health and Healthcare.- PART I: SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON HEALTH AND HEALTHCARE Introduction; The Political Economy of Health and Health Care; Ellen Annandale; The Medicalisation of Reproduction; Pamela Abbott, Claire Wallace and Melissa Tyler; The Social Role of Medicine; David Armstrong; The Sociological Construction of Medicine; Paul Atkinson; The Sociological Imagination; Charles Wright Mills.- PART II: MAKING SENSE OF HEALTH Introduction; Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches; Keith F. Punch; Historical Data for Health Inequalities;Sara Mallinson, Jennie Popay, Eva Elliot, Sharon Bennett, Lisa Bostock, Anthony Gatrell, Carol Thomas and Gareth Williams; Practice-based Evidence; Nick J. Fox; 'Traditional' and 'Emancipatory' Research; Beth Humphries; Women Respondents in Health Research; Helen Roberts; Ethics and Ethics Committees; Carole Truman.- PART III: INEQUALITIES AND DIVERSITY IN HEALTH Introduction; The Politics of Victim Blaming; Robert Crawford; The Determinants of Geographical Inequalities in Health; Heather Joshi, Richard D. Wiggins, Mel Bartley, Richard Mitchell, Simon Gleave and Kevin Lynch; Children Reflecting on Health; Kathryn Backett-Milburn, Sarah Cunningham-Burley and John Davis; Gender and Women's Health; Lesley Doyal; Measuring and Understanding Ethnic Inequalities in Health; Mel Bartley.- PART IV: BODIES, MINDS AND EMOTIONS Introduction; The Body, Medicine and Death; Deborah Lupton; 'Enhancing' the Body; Peter Conrad and Heather T. Jacobson; Humour and Illness; Alison Chapple and Sue Ziebland; Anorexia as Disability; Stephanie Tierney; 'Dirty Work'; Ian Shaw; Emotion Work in Midwifery; Billie Hunter.- PART V: POWER, PROFESSIONS AND PRACTICE Introduction; The Characteristics of a Profession; Eliot Friedson; The Professionalisation of Complementary and Alternative Medicine; Merrijoy Kelner, Beverly Wellman, Heather Boon and Sandy Welsh; The Feminisation of Dentistry; Tracey L. Adams; Occupational Boundaries in the Operating Theatre; Stephen Timmons and Judith Tanner; Choosing to be Childfree; Annily Campbell; The Internet and the Doctor-Patient Relationship; Alex Broom.