Readings in Health, Medicine, and Society offers students carefully selected readings that provide them with a broad and well-rooted knowledge base in global and U.S. medical sociology. Unit I provides students with an overview of the field and examines select concepts and theoretical perspectives. Unit II illustrates the ways in which culture impacts health and health care systems. Unit III examines inequalities at the individual and societal levels. In Unit IV, students investigate how political and corporate structures impact people's health choices and behaviors. Unit V describes the key variables involved in the socialization of Western doctors, reviews the ways folk medicines differ from the Western paradigm, and illustrates an example of healing practices outside Western medicine. Unit VI provides a review of emerging medical technologies as they relate to sociology and offers a critical analysis of pharmaceutical technology. Unit VII critically examines the history of power building by U.S. doctors. The final unit offers a brief overview of the history of bioethics through a discussion of the Nuremburg Code, followed by an examination of patient autonomy and informed consent. Featuring a unique sociological perspective, Readings in Health, Medicine, and Society is an ideal resource for courses in medical sociology and public health.

This text brings together a range of eminent international scholars to reflect upon matters of health, medicine and society at the turn of the century.

Charting shared advances across the emerging fields of medical humanities and health humanities, this book engages with the question of how biomedical knowledge is constructed, negotiated, and circulated as a cultural practice. The volume is composed of a series of pathbreaking inter-disciplinary essays that bring sociocultural habits of mind and modes of thought to the study of medicine, health and patients. These juxtapositions create new forms of knowledge, while emphasizing the vulnerability of human bodies, anti-essentialist approaches to biology, a sensitivity to language and rhetoric, and an attention to social justice. These essays dissect the ways that cultural practices define the limits of health and the body: from the body's place and trajectory in the world to how bodies relate to one another, from questions about ageing and sex to what counts as health and illness. Considering how these and other concepts are shaped by a negotiation between medico-scientific knowledge and ways of knowing derived from other domains, this book provides important new insights into how biomedical frameworks become settled forms for broader cultural understanding.

This book draws on a broad range of theoretical perspectives to bring to life social theories relating to health and illness. Using case studies it provides contrasting insights into the expanding jurisdiction of medicine over popular issues, including binge drinking, obesity, the prominence of therapy and the search for happiness. The book will appeal to students and academics to show how theory can be applied to issues in health and medicine. It is also relevant reading for health professionals who may lack knowledge of social theory and how it can help to understand the relationship between health, medicine and society. The book will also benefit students in the social sciences who are familiar with social theory and interested in how it can be applied to health, medicine and society.

The Health and Society Reader: Health and Disease in a Changing Environment provides students with both an introduction to the sociological study of health and disease and a contemporary view of critical issues in the field. The anthology is divided into seven sections. Sections I and II contain engaging, thought-provoking readings on medical sociology and the social causes of health disparities, including inequality, gender, and veteran status. Section III ex

Adds 21 new essays and drops some that appeared in the 1984 edition (first in 1978) to reflect recent scholarship and changes in orientation by historians. Adds entirely new clusters on sickness and health, early American medicine, therapeutics, the art of medicine, and public health and personal hygiene. Other discussions are updated to reflect such phenomena as the growing mortality from HIV, homicide, and suicide. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Health and illness underpin our everyday existence. Health allows us to live full lives and to function as social beings; illness disrupts our lives, sometimes seriously. But health not only affects individuals, it also impacts upon society as a whole. Medical breakthroughs and scandals, health scares and health service problems all vie for the attention of politicians and public alike. Michael Bury provides a lively introduction to the sociology of health and illness for students approaching the topic for the first time. Drawing on classic writings and up-to-date research, he discusses the conceptualization and patterning of health and illness in contemporary society. He highlights a range of factors, such as gender, age, ethnicity and class, which influence the occurrence and distribution of illness over time. The book then focuses on debates about the body, the role of health services and the politics of health policy. In conclusion, Bury argues that we must take a dynamic view of health and illness as processes that are shaped by social circumstances and altering perceptions. This short introduction will be essential reading for all students studying the sociology of health as part of their degree programme.

Readings in Global Health is a collection of authoritative review articles on topics in global health excerpted from the New England Journal of Medicine. Authored and edited by leading voices in the field, this volume serves as an ideal introduction to both the state of global health and its road from here. With extensive illustration, referencing, and supplemental commentaries by editors David J. Hunter and Harvey V. Fineberg, it's an essential guide to the principles and practice of global health.