Medical sociology

Medical sociology and sociology of health are aspects of sociology. The Medical Sociology is a branch of medicine, but is often distinguished from social medicine. Medical content is more problematized in medical sociology than is usual in social medicine. The medical sociology deals with the role and importance of health and illness in society and have the forms and consequences of their social treatment. The medical sociology interested in:

• At the micro level for individual and collective orientation forms and rationalities ( eg perception of illness, risk behavior, etc. ),
• At the meso level of organizational and network forms of social treatment of disease and health ( eg hospital structures, forms of cooperation during epidemics, etc.)
• At the macro level of social structures, institutions and design options (eg health system, social inequality, etc.).

• 4.1 monographs and articles
• 4.2 Magazines

Health and disease not only refer to function or malfunction of the body, but are mainly a phenomenon of individual condition. The particular given understanding of health and disease is influenced by social norms and values ​​, is part of the social construction of reality.

Health and disease are phenomena that can be defined in at least three different reference systems that arise from a psychological, medical and sociological perspective:

In the reference system of the company analyzed the medical sociology:

• The phenomena of "health" and "disease" in their social dependence ( inter alia disease definitions - formation, function, and change, the impact of epidemics)
• Social backgrounds, contexts and causes of illness ( explanatory models of illness, Social health inequalities ),
• Social influences on the maintenance of health, to the development and course of disease; (Social health inequalities → social stratification, risk behavior, illness careers and typical curves in chronic disease, social support systems ),
• The facilities and the health professions, social control of health care through health policy,
• The interaction between doctor / therapist and patient,
• The possibilities and limitations of medical interventions and their impact on individual and society,
• Conditions and possibilities of prevention and rehabilitation.

The History

The medical sociology developed in the late 19th century from the observation that social conditions and environmental factors have a significant importance for disease development. But less "soft" social factors are assumed to be causes of diseases present. In times of decoding the human genome and big hopes for new treatments through genetic research as a whole more strongly materialistic factors, namely genetic causes of diseases favored.

From the Medical Sociology of the 1950s ( JJ Rohde, W. Schoene ) now has the approach of the Sociology of Health developed. This is due to an onset in the late 1980s, a change of perspective, which combines health with terms such as Public Health and salutogenesis. The far-reaching institutional disengagement from the social sciences have contributed to the social analysis of approaches and theories are under-represented in research. In the meantime, however, would increasingly involved in health systems research, for example, with the application of regulation theory and in prevention research, for example with the Bourdieu 's habitus concept again sociological theories.

As a field of study

Independent of study

The subject " Sociology of Health " is offered by several universities to acquire the qualification of the RAI coordinator.

Part of the medical school

The " Medical Sociology " is a compartment of the pre-clinical stage of study of the study of human medicine. It deals with social, psychosocial and psychological factors of ill health and their medical care, including prevention, treatment and rehabilitation, and examined relationships between health on the one hand and genetic factors, environmental factors, lifestyle variables, social background and medical care on the other.