Health, Illness and Medicine
Chapter 13 Summary

This chapter introduces the student to the main sociological approaches to health, illness and medicine. It shows how the distribution, experience, definition and treatment of illness cannot be understood in purely biological terms. Health, illness and their medical management are part of wider cultural systems and are closely associated with processes of social control, by both professions and the state.

The chapter starts by looking at the core assumptions of the biomedical model of disease which underpins its treatment in Western medicine. The application of various theoretical approaches to the sociological analysis of health, illness and medicine is then discussed. The rise to prominence of bio-centred medicine as part of the process of modernity is charted and contrasted with the emergence of more holistic 'alternative therapies'. The chapter then examines both the distribution of health inequalities in British society and the emergence of the National Health Service as an instrument of their amelioration. In conclusion, it examines global patterns of illness and its treatments, as creatures of historical, political and social influences.