An Outline of Sociology as Applied to Medicine, Third Edition provides an understanding of the origins, nature, and context of illness in society. This book discusses the relationship between health care and the society in which it occurs. Organized into 15 chapters, this edition begins with an overview of some deficiencies of the biomedical model of illness. This text then explores the traditional medical model, which holds that disease is a lesion inside the human body that produces two types of indicator of its presence, namely, the signs and symptoms. Other chapters consider the difference.

Description based upon print version of record.

Front Cover; An Outline of Sociology as Applied to Medicine; Copyright Page; Preface to the third edition; Table of Contents; Chapter 1. Introduction; Chapter 2. Going to the doctor; The experience of symptoms; Illness behaviour; Importance of illness behaviour for the doctor; Illness behaviour and the medical model; References; Chapter 3. Measuring health and illness; Mortality; Morbidity prevalence studies; Sickness absence rates; Caseload; Measures of functioning; Self-report measures; Subjective health measures; Quality of life measures; Summary; References. Chapter 4. Social causes of illness Causal models; Establishing a causal relationship; Social factors; Social integration; Social support; References; Chapter 5. Labelling behaviour; Primary deviance; Secondary deviance; Stigma; Disability and handicap; Labelling and psychiatric disease; References; Chapter 6. Social patterns of illness: I; Explaining illness patterns; Historical changes; Geography; Occupation; Gender; Ethnicity; Unemployment; References; Chaptrer 7. Social patterns of illness: II; Age; Social class; References Chapter 8. Coping with illness Managing labels; Coping with chronic illness; Carers; References; Chapter 9. Models of illness; Exploring abdominal pain; Symptoms and pathology; Biographical medicine; Alternative models of illness; Models of the doctor- patient relationship; References; Chapter 10. Types of health care; Self-care; Family care; Community care; Self-help groups; Professional care; References; Chapter 11. Clinical autonomy; Controlling information; Controlling costs; Paying the doctor; Evaluating doctors' decisions; References Chapter 12. Delivering health care Allocating scarce resources; The market for health care In the USA; Government provision of health care in the UK; Towards a National Health Service; Chapter 13. Evaluating health care; Is the health care system effective/efficient?; Does the health care system meet the 'real' needs of its consumers?; Is the health care system fair?; Is the health care system iatrogenic?; References; Chapter 14. The social basis of disease; Defining disease; Normality in medicine; The biological basis of disease; References Chapter 15. The social role of medicine Illness as a deviance; The doctor as agent of social control; Explaining the place of medicine; References; Bibliography; Index