Abstract
This chapter presents a discussion and critique of medical sociology. The chapter starts with a history of why the author trained in and has had a 25-year (so far) academic career in medical sociology. The chapter then moves on to defining medical sociology and exploring the key contemporary themes taught and researched in the discipline. In order to define medical sociology, the chapter provides definitions of the key terms and explores their historical and contemporary meanings. In terms of “medical,” the chapter explores both epidemiology and social epidemiology since they relate most closely to medical sociology. In terms of “sociology,” the chapter provides descriptions of both the academic discipline of sociology and the adjective “social.” In order to provide concrete examples of medical sociology, the chapter then provides a description of the author’s career in research on applying concepts from the sociology of trust to public health problems, examining trust in healthcare professions, healthcare systems, and broader social systems that impact on health and illness. Overall, this chapter provides a description, examination, critique, and articulation of medical sociology.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Bauman Z (2000) Liquid modernity. Polity Press, Cambridge
Beck W, van der Maesen L, Thomese F, Walker A (2001) Introduction: Who and What is the European Union For? In: Beck W (ed) Social Quality: A Vision for Europe. Kluwer Law International
Berkman LA, Kawachi I (2000a) A historical framework for social epidemiology. In: Berkman LA, Kawachi I (eds) Social epidemiology. Oxford University Press, New York
Berkman LA, Kawachi I (eds) (2000b) Social epidemiology. Oxford University Press, New York
Bourdieu P (1977) Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Busby H, Williams G, Rogers A (1998) Bodies of knowledge: lay and biomedical understandings of musculoskeletal disorders. In: Elston MA (ed) The sociology of medical science and technology. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford
Bury M (1982) Chronic illness as biographical disruption. Sociol of Health Ill 4(2):167–182
Bury M (2001) Illness narratives, fact or fiction? Sociology of Health and Illness 23:263–285
Collyer F (2012) Mapping the sociology of health and medicine: America, Britain and Australia compared. Palgrave Macmillan, London
Collyer FM, Williams Veazey L (2021) The state of the discipline: Australian sociology and its future. J Sociol:14407833211041402. https://doi.org/10.1177/14407833211041402
Davison C et al. (1991) Lay epidemiology and the prevention paradox: the implications of coronary candidacy for health education. Sociology of Health and Illness 13:1–19
Davison C et al. (1992) The limits of lifestyle: Re-assessing fatalism in the popular culture of illness prevention. Soc Sci Med 34(6):675–685
Durkheim E (1951) Suicide: a study in sociology. Free Press, Glencoe
Durkheim E (1982) The rules of sociological method. Free Press, New York
Elias N (2000) The civilising process. Sociogenetic and psychogenetic investigations. Blackwell, Oxford
Ellwood CA (1907) Sociology: its problems and its relations. Am J Sociol 13(3):300–348
Foucault M (1989) The birth of the clinic. An archaeology of medical perception. London, Routledge
Foucault M (1971) Madness and civilization. Routledge, London
Fuller S (2006) The New Sociological Imagination. London, Sage
Gidman W, Ward P, McGregor L (2012) Understanding public trust in services provided by community pharmacists relative to those provided by general practitioners: a qualitative study. BMJ Open 2(3):e000939
Goffman E (2009) Stigma: notes on the management of spoiled identity. Simon and Schuster
Graham S (1963) Social factors in relation to chronic illness. In: Freeman H, Levine S, Reeder L (eds) Handbook of medical sociology. Prentice Hall, New Jersey
Habermas J (2001) On the pragmatics of social interaction. Preliminary studies in the theory of communicative action. Cambridge, Polity Press
Henderson J, Ward P, Coveney J, Meyer S (2012) Trust in the Australian food supply: innocent until proven guilty. Health Risk Soc 14(3):257–272
Herrmann P (2005) Empowerment: the core of social quality. European Journal of Social Quality 5(1&2):289–300
Indrayathi PA, Januraga PP, Pradnyani PE, Gesesew HA, Ward PR (2021) Perceived social norms as determinants of adherence to public health measures related to COVID-19 in Bali, Indonesia. Front Public Health 9(269):646764
Islam MS, Siddique AB, Akter R, Tasnim R, Sujan MSH, Ward PR, Sikder MT (2021) Knowledge, attitudes and perceptions towards COVID-19 vaccinations: a cross-sectional community survey in Bangladesh. BMC Public Health 21(1):1851
Jones FL (1983) The crisis in sociology. Aust N Z J Sociol 19(2):195–203
Khoury M (1999) Human genome epidemiology (Huge): translating advances in human genetics into population-based data for medicine and public health. Genet Med 1:71–73
Krieger N (2001) A glossary for social epidemiology. J Epidemiol Community Health 55:693–700
Latour B (2005) Reassembling the social. An introduction to actor-network theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Luhmann N (1995) Social systems. Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press
Macdonald KI (2001) Commentary: social epidemiology. A way? Int J Epidemiol 30:46–47
Marmot M, Smith G, Stansfeld S, Patel C, North F, Head J, White I, Brunner E, Feeney A (1991) Health inequalities among British civil servants: the Whitehall II sudy. Lancet 337(8754):1387–1393
Meyer SB, Ward PR, Coveney J, Rogers W (2008) Trust in the health system: an analysis and extension of the social theories of Giddens and Luhmann. Health Sociol Rev 17(2):177–186
Meyer S, Gibson B, Ward P (2015) Niklas Luhmann: social systems theory and the problems for public health research and policy. In: Collyer F (ed) Handbook of social theory for the sociology of health and medicine. Palgrave Macmillan, London
Mykhalovskiy E, Frohlich KL, Poland B, Di Ruggiero E, Rock MJ, Comer L (2019) Critical social science with public health: agonism, critique and engagement. Crit Public Health 29(5):522–533
Popay J, Williams G (1996) Public health research and lay knowledge. Soc Sci Med 42(5):759–768
Scambler G (2001) Habermas, critical theory and health. London, Routledge
Scambler G (2002) Health and social change. A critical theory. Open University Press, Buckingham
Scambler G (2009) Health-related stigma. Social Health Ill 31(3):441–455
Schatzki T (2002) The site of the social. A philosophical account of the constitution of social life and change. Pennsylvania State University Press, Pennsylvania
Schwartz S, Susser E, Susser M (1999) A future for epidemiology? Annu Rev Public Health 20:15–33
Straus R (1957) The nature and status of medical sociology. Am Sociol Rev 22(2):200–204
Strong PM (1979) Sociological imperialism and the profession of medicine. Soc Sci Med 13A:199–215
Touraine A (2007) Sociology after sociology. Eur J Soc Theory 10(2):184–193
Ward P (2010) Similarities in approach between big tobacco and big booze: Evidence of the greedy bastard hypothesis? Australasian Medical Journal 3(6):333–334
Ward P (2020) A sociology of the Covid-19 pandemic: a commentary and research agenda for sociologists. J Sociol 56:1–10
Ward P, Coates A (2006) “We shed tears but there is no one there to wipe them up for us”: narratives of (mis)trust in a materially deprived community. Health 10:283–302
Ward PR, Henderson J, Coveney J, Meyer S (2012) How do South Australian consumers negotiate and respond to information in the media about food and nutrition? The importance of risk, trust and uncertainty. J Sociol 48(1):23–41
Ward P, Mamerow L, Meyer S (2014) Interpersonal trust across six Asia-Pacific countries: testing and extending the “high trust society” and “low trust society” theory. PLoS One 9(4):e95555
Ward P, Coffey C, Javanparast S, Wilson C, Meyer S (2015a) Institutional (mis)trust in colorectal cancer screening: a qualitative study with Greek, Iranian, Anglo-Australian and Indigenous groups. Health Expect 18:2915–2927
Ward P, Coffey C, Meyer S (2015b) Trust, choice and obligation: a qualitative study of enablers to colorectal cancer screening in South Australia. Sociol Health Illn 37(7):988–1006
Ward PR, Rokkas P, Cenko C, Pulvirenti M, Dean N, Carney S, Brown P, Calnan M, Meyer S (2015c) A qualitative study of patient (dis)trust in public and private hospitals: the importance of choice and pragmatic acceptance for trust considerations in South Australia. BMC Health Serv Res 15:297
Ward PR, Attwell K, Meyer SB, Rokkas P, Leask J (2017a) Risk, responsibility and negative responses: a qualitative study of parental trust in childhood vaccinations. J Risk Res 21(9):1–14
Ward PR, Attwell K, Meyer SB, Rokkas P, Leask J (2017b) Understanding the perceived logic of care by vaccine-hesitant and vaccine-refusing parents: a qualitative study in Australia. PLoS One 12(10):e0185955
Ward P, Lunnay B, Foley K, Meyer S, Thomas J, Huppatz E, Olver I, Miller E (2021a) Uncertainty, fear and control during COVID-19… or … making a safe boat to survive rough seas: the lived experience of women in South Australia during early COVID-19 lockdowns. In: Brown P, Zinn J (eds) COVID-19 across 6 continents – social challenges, responses and consequences. Palgrave Press, London
Ward P, Lunnay B, Foley K, Meyer S, Thomas J, Olver I, Miller E (2021b) The case of Australia. Trust during pandemic uncertainty – a qualitative study of midlife women in South Australia. Int J Soc Qual 11(1&2):289–308
Wiley KE, Leask J, Attwell K, Helps C, Barclay L, Ward PR, Carter SM (2021) Stigmatized for standing up for my child: a qualitative study of non-vaccinating parents in Australia. SSM Popul Health 16:100926
Williams G (2003) The determinants of health: structure, context and agency. Sociol Health Illn 25:131–154
Williams S J, Calnan M (1996) The limits of medicalization? Modern medicine and the lay populace in late modernity. Soc Sci Med 42:1609–1620
Williams G (2000) Knowledgeable narratives. Anthropol & Med 7:135–140.
Williams G, Popay J (2001) Lay health knowledge and the concept of the lifeworld. Habermas, Critical Theory and Health. G. Scambler. London, Routledge
Wilson AM, Tonkin E, Coveney J, Meyer SB, McCullum D, Calnan M, Kelly E, O’Reilly S, McCarthy M, McGloin A, Ward PR (2020) Cross-country comparison of strategies for building consumer trust in food. Health Promot Int 35(2):267–278
Wright Mills C (1959) The sociological imagination. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Zielhuis GA, Kiemeney LALM (2001) Social epidemiology? No way. Int J Epidemiol 30:43–44
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Ward, P.R. (2023). Medical Sociology. In: Liamputtong, P. (eds) Handbook of Social Sciences and Global Public Health. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25110-8_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25110-8_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-25109-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-25110-8
eBook Packages: Social SciencesReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences