...Social Science & Medicine 66 (2008) 2520e2531 www.elsevier.com/locate/socscimed Biomedical scientists’ perception of the social sciences in health research* Mathieu Albert a,*, Suzanne Laberge b, Brian D. Hodges a, Glenn Regehr a, Lorelei Lingard a a b University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario, Canada Universite de Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada ´ ´ ´ Available online 11 March 2008 Abstract The growing interest in interdisciplinary research within the Canadian health sciences sector has been manifested by initiatives aimed at increasing the involvement of the social sciences in this sector. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of field and Knorr-Cetina’s concept of epistemic culture, this study explores the extent to which it is possible for the social sciences to integrate into, and thrive in, a field in which the experimental paradigm occupies a hegemonic position. Thirty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore biomedical scientists’ receptiveness toward the social sciences in general and to qualitative research in particular. We found that these respondents exhibited a predominantly negative posture toward the social sciences; however, we also found considerable variation in their judgments and explanations. Eight biomedical scientists tended to be receptive to the social sciences, 7 ambivalent, and 16 unreceptive. The main rationale expressed by receptive respondents is that the legitimacy of a method depends on its capacity to adequately...
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... Psychology assignment (karon Chewter 7nd March 2016) Psychology applied to health Health psychology is the study of health, illnessillness, and health care practice. Health psychology as a unique area of psychology came to the forefront in the 1970s and has since grown. (Gross.R 2005) Health psychology is an exciting and relatively new field devoted to understanding psychological influences on how people stay healthy, why they become ill and how they respond when they do get ill? It focuses on health promotion and maintenance, prevention and treatment of illness and the understanding of the biopsychosocial aspects of physical and mental illness, improvement of the health care system and the formulation of health policy (S.E, Taylor, 1995). The main areas of health psychology are stress and coping, health behaviours and issues in health. Health psychologists study such issues and develop interventions to help people stay well or get over illness. For exampleexample, a health psychology researcher might be interested in why adolescents continue to binge drink even though they know that binge drinking increases their risk of cancer and heart disease. Understanding this poor health habit leads to interventions to help adolescents stop binge drinking. The waysways, in which health psychologists try to change the behaviours, the influence of behaviourist such as Skinner and Watson will become apparent. Applying...
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...P2 Explain different sociological approaches to health and ill health There are different approaches to health and ill health in sociology, and these include Functionalism, Marxism, Feminism and Interactionism. The World Health Organisation (WHO) in 1974 defines positive health as a state of complete physical mental, social, spiritual and well-being not merely the absence of disease. The holistic approach is based on addressing the individual’s physical, social, emotional and spiritual health needs. The functionalist approach to health and ill health In the functionalist model, Parsons argued that illness is a form of deviance that disturbs the social function of a society; within the functionalist approach to health it studies the relationship between a sick individual and the society as a whole. Parsons stated that for the society to function efficiently the members of the society must be free from illness and must be of well health. Functionalists argued that stability and cooperation are very crucial for a society to function efficiently; functionalists explain that through the process of socialisation we learn our society’s general norms, values and social roles. An example of this is, saying “thank you or please” these are some of the values that are treasured within societies, and an example of a social role would be a grandmother fulfilling the role as a grandmother. For the grandmother to fulfil her role, the individual has to look after the grandchildren so...
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...understanding of health and wellbeing. I will then produce a comprehensive description that shows an in depth understanding of two different factors that affect health and wellbeing. I will also compare and show the differences between the medical and social models of health and wellbeing and why individuals often fail to comply with health education advice. I will then draw conclusions about each model of health and wellbeing. I will then aim to give a description of two ways of which individual’s quality of life is affected by ill health. Section A Good health is to do with physical, intellectual, emotional and social aspects in life. These aspects affect us daily. Eating healthy and exercising regularly is important as this could potentially prevent illness and disease. Good health may also be affected by society and how the media influences us. This may be related to teenagers and how they often look up to celebrities who could potentially affect their health and wellbeing. Environmental and economic factors have a big influence daily. One example of this is where we live and if there is crime. If there is, this may have a big impact on our physical health as well as emotional. People may be affected by economic factors specifically if they haven’t got much money, this could potentially mean they cannot afford treatment which in turn makes their physical and emotional health worse. There are three ways to describe health and wellbeing, Holistic, Positive and Negative view. ...
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...Evaluate biomedical model of health Current medical models assume that all illness is secondary to disease. Revision is needed to explain illnesses without disease and improve organisation of health care. Cultural and professional models of illness influence decisions on individual patients and delivery of health care. The biomedical model of illness, which has dominated health care for the past century, cannot fully explain many forms of illness. This failure stems partly from three assumptions: all illness has a single underlying cause, disease (pathology) is always the single cause, and removal or attenuation of the disease will result in a return to health. Currently, most models of illness assume a causal relation between disease and illness—the perceived condition of poor health felt by an individual. Cultural health beliefs and models of illness help determine the perceived importance of symptoms and the subsequent use of medical resources.4 The assumption that a specific disease underlies all illness has led to medicalisation of commonly experienced anomalous sensations and often disbelief of patients who present with illness without any demonstrable disease process. Finally, most biomedical models also seem strongly linked to primitive forms of intuitive mind-body dualism. Health commissioners, budgetary systems, healthcare professionals, and the public all act as if there is some clear, inescapable separation between physical and mental health problems, ignoring evidence...
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...HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY Health psychology is defined as the application of psychology to the relevant areas of health, disease and the health care system. Medicine and health psychology have many common themes and interests but they differ in their approaches. The primary focus of medicine is the diagnosis, treatment and cure of illness. The focus of health psychology goes beyond that of medicine to stress the prevention and enhancement of health. It expands the biological framework of medicine to also include psychological and social factors. The scope of health psychology is very broad because many theories and methods of psychology can be applied to health-related issues. Maes & van Elderen (1998) (cited in Gross, 2009) defines health psychology as “…a sub-discipline of psychology which addresses the relationship between psychological processes and behaviour on the one hand and health and illness on the other...”. Health psychology aims to understand, explain, develop and test theories by evaluating the role of psychology and its perspectives as factors affecting illness, predicting unhealthy behaviours and understanding and evaluating the role of psychology in the experience and treatment of illness. It also aims to put theory into practice by promoting healthy behaviour, preventing illness and thereby improving the health care system and health policy. For example, from programmes developed to help people reduce risk factors to their health, such as obesity and...
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...Sociological perspectives Intro – In this booklet I am going to be giving information explaining the principle sociological perspectives and the different sociological approaches to health and ill health. Functionalism – The theory that all aspects of a society serve a function and are necessary for the survival of that society. This links to This links to health as you are responsible for your own health and wellbeing and it is your responsibility to get better This links to ill health as they often fail to recognise a mental health problem, because of this it could get progressively worse and they could become very unwell and have a low self-esteem. Marxism – Society structure that is based on economic power and how wealthy you are. This has two social classes, the rich and the poor. This links to This links to health as rich people get cared for quicker. This is because they have the money to be able to get private health care. For example a poor person would have to go to a standard hospital and will have to wait hours to be seen to where as a rich person with private health care will be seen to straight away as there are less people waiting. This links to ill health as the believe that if the doctors do not find an illness then there is not one there, this means that they could have a serious health problem which a doctor may not have spotted and because they believe that there is not one there they could develop a serious illness and become unwell. Feminism – Believe...
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...The conventional biomedical model contrasts from social model from numerous points of view. As suggested by Henderson-Wilson (2012), biomedical model of health recommends that every sickness that influences the body in a route results from breakdowns, for example, germs or illnesses in the body. Nonetheless, the social model health recommends that it intends to recognize the components inside of a general public that occupies the strength of people which is affected by the social environment. The biomedical model focuses on the physical side of the body where diseases and sicknesses may happen which is honed by exceptionally rehearsed specialists and wellbeing experts, though, the social model considers an extensive variety of determinants...
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...Assignment One 1a. Biomedical Sciences/ Health Technology The study of biomedical sciences and health technology help promote and maintain health for animals and humans. Research from this field helps prevent and sometimes cure long term diseases using medical drugs, medical procedures, and medical devices. To increase life expectancy and growth biomedical science is a necessary step for humans and animals. Patients who suffer from long term diseases such as diabetes or cancer will have a higher probability to survive with the proper care provided by institutions equipped with the technology to treat them. As our medical technology develops we can obtain more advanced methods. Some of which include...
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...From the early 1990s through to 2010 chronic obstructive pulmonary disease has now placed itself as the 3rd most common cause of death. Most deaths occurred in low income groups and since the middle of the 19th century the analysis of mortality rates has helped health professionals get a better insight of the causes of the illness.(Burney,2015). According to (R Beaglehole, D Yach 2003) the burden of illness will be dominated by non-communicable diseases by 2016 and the future burden of diseases such as smoking which can only be determined by the amount of exposure to risk factors. Innovation has also caused an increase in modern information and communication,there are positives but there are also negatives since there is global marketing...
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...The W.H.O. (World Health Organisation) defines health as, “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease infirmity” (1948). This definition stands to this present day, and is the most commonly referred to by health professionals and text books. Before the 1700’s popular belief of illness and disease would have been the presence of evil spirit or curse interned inside the patient. Trepanning was a method where a hole was drilled into the skull of the patient to let the evil spirits leave the body…………….wies and semmille????? The biomedical model of health views the body as a machine; if it becomes dysfunctional it can be fixed. The biomedical model which was developed predominantly in Western Europe, between the late 1700’s to the late 1800’s, is based on research and discoveries, using scientific methods. Thus leading to the belief that illness was caused by bacteria, viruses’, genetic predisposition, trauma or degenerative conditions. These could be treated with medication, surgery based firmly on the scientific understanding of the physiology and bio-chemistry of the human body. This model lead to vast advances in medicine, for example, cures for many of the pre-war diseases such as Typhoid, Tuberculosis and Cholera were developed. However, this definition of health has been criticised for its one dimensional approach as it focuses purely on the physical aspects of the patient and fails to take account of the...
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...Unit 7: Sociological perspectives for Health and Social Care Explain the principle sociological perspectives In this section of my assignment I will be discussing some sociological perspectives, which are: * Marxism * Functionalist * Internationalism * Postmodernism But firstly, what is social structure? Social structure is split into different institutions. Social institutions Social institutions Work Work The political system The political system The economy The economy The education system The education system Religious instruction Religious instruction Socialisation is a key sociological perspective. Primary socialisation is from what your parents learn you, we also learn our behaviours from others. Socialisation refers to learning the norms, values beliefs, roles, stats and more. Marxism perspective: Marxists believe that society is based on conflict between the upper class (bourgeoisie) and the working class (proletariat). Marxists also believe that to end this in society you need a revolution. We live in a capitalist society. A capitalist society is a society that is built upon a quest for maximum amount of money; people who have a lot of money will have the most power. Marxists sees this as an evil society and it must come to an end. Karl Marx’s perspective could be argued that his idea is outdated and was writing when workers had no power or right but nowadays workers have a lot of different legal rights and have more...
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...Unit F912: Promoting Good Health Health & Social Care AS Contents Page A01 – Pages 3 - 13 A02 - A03 – A04 – Promoting good health This unit explores what is good health, the models, the range of lifestyle choices and societal factors which influence health and well-being. Health and well-being are not only affected by an individual’s lifestyle choices (e.g. smoking, eating unhealthy ‘fatty food), but also by societal and environmental issues (e.g. living near a motorway – high pollution levels) Government policies and legislation have an imperative part to play in the promotion of good health, as the introduction on screening programmes (e.g. cervical smear test, antenatal screening etc.); which prevent ill health, has been an incredible and useful tool. Health promoters also have a significant role to play in helping individual’s using services to make the right decision about their health. As their choice of presentation approach can make or damage a health promotion campaign. Further, health promoters need to take into account the presentation methods, and to ensure that they have been chosen well to confirm that the message is successfully put over to the individual to whom it is directed. What is ‘health’? The Worlds Health Organisation (WHO) defines health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. However, others may simply define health as the absence of illness,...
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...Western and indigenous models of health and healing? Discuss with reference to at least two ethnographic examples. Matriculation number: 1002122 1 Introduction Different varieties of models of health and healing have come into an increasing degree of contact over the last 120 years, facilitated by broad economic and socio-cultural trends such as globalization and the construction of world views of healthcare standards and organization (Keane, 2010: 235-236. Whyte & Geest, 1988: 9-11). That is to say, that through the growth of the mass media and global markets in pharmaceuticals as well as the establishment of world health organizations and projects, such as WHO, models of health and healing (especially the Western model based in the clinical institutions of biomedicine) have been transmitted around the world. Localized concepts of health, and consequently, the cultures, societies and bodies of which those concepts are a vital part, are increasingly understood and shaped through their relationship with foreign models of health and healing. Indeed, Whyte & Geest (1988: 8) argue that Western and indigenous medicines ‘contextualise’ one another. The critical point, however, is that medical anthropologists have found that this relationship is not symmetrical. The interaction of Western and indigenous models of health and healing is structured by power relations of various sorts which usually result in the enforcement of Western health imperatives on an indigenous...
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...Scheff, Szasz and Goffman argue that mental illness is a social construction. Discuss how this approach differs from the biomedical approach to mental illness. Mental illness has been well-defined severally by some sociologists, professionals in the medical field, politicians and other good academia. Mental illness can be define as ‘a state of one’s mind that affects the thinking, emotions and judgement to the extent that the individual need a medical attention for his/her personal safety and that of the society’. The definition of mental illness by other academia has been termed as behavioural and emotional disorder. They perceive this disorder as disease that affects the mind. In a particular society, mental illness is a behaviour which is classified as disturbed or abnormal and people found of that behaviour are branded deviant. Acceptable behaviour in one society can be unacceptable behaviour in other society. From the biomedical approach point of view, mental illness deals with the state of mind and is the duty of the trained professionals to diagnose patients and by the use drugs and surgery treat them in medical way in order to improve the patient mental disorder, living condition and poor self-care. This model places more emphasis on the causes of mental illness as biological so it was criticized thereby making the social condition play a significant role. ‘’There is the need to recognize both the outer and inner worlds of a person as well as the society’’ (Duggan...
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