Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Medicalization: Changing Contours, Characteristics, and Contexts

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Medical Sociology on the Move

Abstract

Medicalization has become a central analytical theme in medical sociology, a topic in medical sociology courses and the subject of hundreds if not thousands of articles (Conrad P (2007) The medicalization of society: on the transformation of human condition into treatable disorders. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore; Ballard K, Elston MA (2005) Medicalisation: a multi-dimensional concept. Soc Theory Heal 3:228–241; Clarke et al. 2010). Other scholars, including historians (Nye RA (2003) The evolution of the concept of medicalization in the late twentieth century. J Hist Behavioral Sci 39:115–129), anthropologists (Lock M (2001, Press 2006) Medicalization: cultural concerns. In: Smelser N, Baltes P (eds) International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences. Elsevier, New York), medical and public health researchers (Metzl JM, Herzig RM (2007) Medicalisation in the 21st century: an introduction. Lancet 369:697–698; Maloney 2011; Lantz et al. (2007) Health policy approaches to population health: the limits of medicalization. Health Affairs 26:1253–1257), economists (Thorpe KE, Philwaw M (2012) The medicalization of chronic disease and costs. Ann Rev Public Heal 23:409–423), bioethicists (Parens E (2011) On good and bad forms of medicalization. Bioethics doi:10.1111/j.1467-8519.2011.01885.x), and even literary scholars (Lane C (2007) Shyness: how normal behavior became a sickness. Yale University Press, New Haven) have also examined medicalization. Medicalization has been the subject of newspaper and magazine commentaries (e.g. Welch 2011) and discussion at (President’s Council on Bioethics (2003) Beyond therapy: biotechnology and the pursuit of happiness. The President’s Council on Bioethics, Washington). It seems clear that medicalization has become a topic of interest beyond sociology. Within medical sociology it is a concept that has moved from the periphery of intellectual interest in the 1970s to a central area of interest in the twenty-first century.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Abraham, J. (2010a). The sociological concomitants of the pharmaceutical industry and medications. In C. E. Bird., P. Conrad., A. M. Freemont., & S. Timmermans. (Eds.), The Handbook of Medical Sociology. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, PP. 290–308.

    Google Scholar 

  • Abraham, J. (2010b). Pharmaceuticalization of society in context: Theoretical, empirical, and health dimensions. Sociology, 44, 603–622.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alper, P. R. (1987). Medical practice in a competitive market. New England Journal of Medicine, 316, 337–339.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Andy, M., & Rich, E. (2008). The medicalization of cyberspace. New York: Routlege

    Google Scholar 

  • Angell, Marcia. (2004). The Truth About the Drug Companies. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Armstrong, D. (1995). The rise of surveillance medicine. Sociology of Health & Illness, 17, 393–404.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baillargeon, D. (2009). Babies for the Nation: The Medicalization of Motherhood in Quebec, 1910–1970. Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ballard, K., & Elston, M. A. (2005). Medicalisation: A multi-dimensional concept. Social Theory and Health, 3, 228–241.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barker, Kristin K. 2008. Electronic Support Groups, Patient Consumers, and Medicalization: The Case of Contested Illness. journal of Health and Social Behavior 4920–36.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barker, K. K. (2010). The social construction of illness: Medicalization and contested illness. In C. E. Bird, P. Conrad, A. M. Freemont, & S. Timmermans (Eds.), The Handbook of Medical Sociology (6th ed., pp. 147–162). Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Becker, H. S. (1973). Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (2nd ed.). Glencoe, IL: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bell, S. (1987). Changing ideas: The medicalization of menopause. Social Science and Medicine, 24, 535–542.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, P., Zavestoski, S., McCormick, S., Meyer, B., Morello-Frosch, R., & Altman, R. (2004). Embodied health movements: new approaches to social movements in health. Sociology of Health & Illness, 26, 50–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bussing, R., & Fay, G. (2010). Assessing and treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in culturally diverse populations. In: S. Evans., & B. Hoza. (Eds.). Treating Attention Deficit Disorder (pp. 20-1–20-25). Princeton, NJ: Civic Research Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cheryl, S., & Conrad, P. (2010). Medicalization and risk scares: The case of menopause and HRT. In D. Light. (Ed.), The Risks of Prescription Drugs (pp. 120–142). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, Adele E., Laura Mamo, Jennifer Ruth Fosket, Jennifer R. Fishman and Janet K. Shim (eds.). (2010). Bimedicalization: Technoscience, Health and Illness in the U.S. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, A. E., & Shim, J. K. (2011). Medicalization and biomedicalization revisited. In B. Pescosolido, J. Martin, A. Rogers, & D. Pilgrim (Eds.), Handbook of the Sociology of Health, Illness and Healing (pp. 173–199). New York, NY: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, A. E., Shim, J. K., Mamo, L., Fosket, J. R., & Fishman, J. R. (2003). Biomedicalization: Technoscientific transformations of health, illness, and U.S. biomedicine. American Sociological Review, 68, 161–194.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, A. E., Shim, J. K., Mamo, L., Fosket, J. R., & Fishman, J. R. (2011). Biomedicalization: A theoretical and substantive introduction. In A. E. Clarke., L. Mamo., J. R. Fosket., J. R. Fishman., & J. K. Shim. (Eds.), Biomedicalization: Technoscience, Health, and Illness in the U.S. (pp. 1–47). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, P. (1975). The discovery of hyperkinesis: Notes on the medicalization of deviant behavior. Social Problems, 32, 12–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, P. (1976). Identifying Hyperactive Children: The Medicalization of Deviant Behavior. Lexington: D.C. Heath.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, P. (1987). Wellness in the workplace: Potentials and pitfalls of worksite health promotion. Milbank Quarterly, 65, 255–275.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, P. (1992). Medicalization and Social Control. Annual Review of Sociology, 18, 209–232.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, P. (2000). Medicalization, genetics and human problems. In C. Bird., P. Conrad., & A. Fremont. (Eds.), Handbook of Medical Sociology (5th Ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, P. (2007). The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Condition into Treatable Disorders. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, P. & Valerie L. (2008). From Lydia Pinkham to Queen Levitra: DTCA and Medicalization. Sociology of Health and Illness 30:825–838

    Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, P. & Cheryl S. (2010). Medicalization and Risk Scares: The Case of Menopause and HRT ,pp. 120-42 in Donald Light (ed.) The Risks of Prescription Drugs. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, P., & Leiter, V. (2004). Medicalization, markets and consumers. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 45(extra issue), 158–176.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, P., & Markens, S. (2001). Constructing the ‘Gay Gene’ in the news: Optimism and skepticism in the American and British press. Health, 5, 373–400.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, P., & Potter, D. (2004). Human growth hormone and the temptations of biomedical enhancement. Sociology of Health & Illness, 26, 184–215.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, P. (2005). Shifting Engines of Medicalization. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 46, 3–14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, P., & Schneider, J. W. (1980a). Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to Sickness. St. Louis: C.V. Mosby.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, P., & Schneider, J. W. (1980b). Looking at levels of medicalization: A comment on strong’s critique of the thesis of medical imperialism. Social Science and Medicine, 14A, 75–79.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, P., & Schneider, J. W. (1992). Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to Sickness (Expanded ed.). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, P., Mackie, T., & Mehrotra, A. (2010). Estimating the costs of medicalization. Social Science and Medicine, 70, 1943–1947.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davis, J. E. (2006). How medicalization lost its way. Society, 43, 51–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davis, J. E. (2010). Medicalization, social control and the relief of suffering. In W. Cockerham (Ed.), The New Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology (pp. 211–241). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis-Floyd, R. (2004). Birth as an American Right of Passage (2nd ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ehrenreich, B., & English, D. (1973). Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness. New York, NY: The Feminist Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Figert, A. E. (1995). The three faces of PMS: The professional, gendered and scientific structuring of a psychiatric disorder. Social Problems, 42, 56–73.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Figert, A. E. (2011). The consumer turn in medicalization: Future directions with historical foundations. In B. Pescosolido, J. Martin, A. Rogers, & D. Pilgrim (Eds.), Handbook of the Sociology of Health, Illness and Healing (pp. 291–307). New York, NY: Springer Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1965). Madness and Civilization. New York, NY: Bandam Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freidson, E. (1970). Profession of Medicine: A Study of the Sociology of Applied Knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, E. (1961). Asylums. New York: Anchor Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greely, H. T., Sahakian, B., Harris, J., Kessler, R., Gazzaniga, M. S., Campbell, P. & Farah, M. J. (2008). Toward responsible use of cognitive enhancing drugs by the healthy. Nature, 456, 702–705.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gusfield, J. R. (1967). Moral passage: The symbolic process in the public designations of deviance. Social Problems, 15, 175–188.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hislop, J., & Arber, S. (2003). Understanding women’s sleep: Beyond. Medicalization- healthicization. Sociology of Health & Illness, 25, 815–837.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Horwitz, A. V., & Wakefield, J. (2007). The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Illich, I. (1975). Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health. New York, NY: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Illich, I., Zola, I. K., & others. (2000). Disabling Conditions. London: Marion Boyers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lane, C. (2007). Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lantz, P. M., Lichtenstein, R. L., & Pollack, H. A. (2007). Health policy approaches to population health: The limits of medicalization. Health Affairs, 26, 1253–1257.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Light, D. W. (1993). Countervailing power. In F. W. Hafferty & J. B. Mckinlay (Eds.), Theh Changing Medical Profession: An International Perspective (pp. 69–79). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lippman, A. (1991). Prenatal genetic testing and screening: Constructing needs and reinforcing tendencies. American Journal of Law and Society, 17, 15–50.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lippman, A. (1998). The Politics of Health: Geneticization Verses Health Promotion. In Susan Sherwin (ed.) The Politics of Women's Health: Exploring Agency and Autonomy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Litt, J. S. (2000). The Medicalization of Motherhood. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lock, M. (2001). Medicalization: Cultural concerns. In N. Smelser & P. Baltes (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. New York, NY: Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Loe, M. (2004). The Rise of Viagra: How the Little Blue Pill Changed Sex in America. New York, NY: NYU Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maloney, Malread Easton, Thomas R. Konrad, & Catherine R. Zimmer. (2011). The Medicalization of Sleeplessness: A Public Health Concern. American Journal of Public Health 101, 429–433.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, E. (1987). The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction.

    Google Scholar 

  • Medina, T. R., & McCraine, A. (2011). Layering control: Medicalization, psychopathy, and the increasing muti-instiutional management of social problems. In B. Pescosolido, J. Martin, A. Rogers, & D. Pilgrim (Eds.), Handbook of the Sociology of Health, Illness and Healing (pp. 139–157). New York, NY: Springer Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Metzl, J. M., & Herzig, R. M. (2007). Medicalisation in the twenty-first Century: An introduction. The Lancet, 369, 697–698.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moloney, M., Konrad, T. R., & Zimmer, C. R. (2011). The medicalization of sleeplessness: A public health concer. American Journal of Public Health, 101, 1429–1433.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, L. M. (1990). The medicalization of anthropology: A critical perspective on the clinical debate. Social Science and Medicine, 30, 945–950.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moynihan, R., & Cassels, A. (2005). Selling Sickness. New York, NY: Nation Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moynihan, R., Heath, I., & Henry, D. (2002). Selling sickness: The pharmaceutical industry and disease mongering. British Medical Journal, 324, 886–891.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mykytyn. Courtney Everts. (2006). Anti-aging medicine: A patient/practioner movement to redefine aging. Social Science and Medicine, 62,643–653.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nelkin, D., & Susan Lindee, M. (1995). The DNA Mystique: The Gene as a Cultural Icon. New York, NY: Freeman Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nye, R. A. (2003). The evolution of the concept of medicalization in the late twentieth century. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 39, 115–129.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Outram, S. (2012). The use of metthylphenidate among students: The future of ehancement? Journal of Medical Ethics, 36, 198–202.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parens, E. (2011). On good and bad forms of medicalization. Bioethics doi,. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8519.2011.01885.x.online.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parsons, T. (1951). The Social System. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pitts, J. R. (1968). Social control: The concept. In Sills, D. L. (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (Vol. 14, pp. 381–396). New York, NY: Macmillan and The Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • President’s Council on Bioethics. (2003). Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness. Washington, DC: The President’s Council on Bioethics.

    Google Scholar 

  • Press, N. (2006). Social construction and medicalization: Behavioral genetics in context. In E. Parens., A. R. Chapman., & N. Press. (Eds.), Wrestling with Behavioral Genetics: Science, Ethics and Public Conversation (pp. 131–149). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Riessman, C. K. (1983). Women and medicalization: A new perspective. Social Policy, 14(Summer), 3–18.

    Google Scholar 

  • Riska, E. (2003). Gendering the medicalization thesis. Advances in Gender Research, 7, 59–87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Riska, E. (2011). Gender and medicalization and biomedicalization theories. In A. E. Clarke, L. Mamo, J. R. Fosket, J. R. Fishman, & J. K. Shim (Eds.), Biomedicalization: Technoscience, Health, and Illness in the U.S. (pp 147–171). Durham NC: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenberg, C. (2000). Banishing risk: Continuity and change in moral management of disease. In A. Brandt & P. Rozin (Eds.), Morality and Health (pp. 35–52). New York, NY: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenfeld, D., & Faircloth, C. (Eds.). (2006). Medicalized Masculinities. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schepher-Hughes, Nancy & Margaret Lock. (1987). The Mindful Body: A Prolegomenon to Future Work in Medical Anthropology Medical Anthropology Quarterly 1, 6–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shostak, S., Conrad, P., & Horwitz, A. (2008). Sequencing and its consequences: Path dependence and the relationships between genetics and medicalization. American Journal of Sociology, 114(S1), S287–S316.

    Google Scholar 

  • Silver, L. M. (1997). Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World. New York, NY: Avon Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sullivan, D. A. (2001). Cosmetic Surgery: The Cutting Edge of Medicine in America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Szasz, T. S. (1960). The myth of mental illness. The American Psychologist, 15, 113–118.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Szasz, T. S. (1970). The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement. New York, NY: Harper and Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thorpe, K. E., & Philwaw, M. (2012). The medicalization of chronic disease and costs. Annual Review of Public Health, 23, 409–423.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Welch, H. G. (2010). The medicalization of life. Los Angeles Times, 15, A15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wertz, R. W., & Wertz, D. C. (1989). Lying-In: A History of Childbirth in America (Ex ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, S. J., & Calnan, M. (1996). The ‘Limits’ of medicalization? Modern medicine and the lay populace in ‘Late’ modernity. Social Science and Medicine, 42, 1609–1620.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williams, S. J., Seale, C., Boden, S., & Lowe, P. (2008). Waking up to sleepiness: Modafinil, the Media and the pharmaceuticalisation of everyday/night life. Sociology of Health & Illness, 30, 839–855.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wolpe, P. R. (2002). Treatment, enhancements and the ethics of neurotherapeutics. Brain and Cognition, 50, 387–395.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zola, I. K. (1972). Medicine as an institution of social control. The Sociological Review, 20, 487–504.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Brandeis University, Massachusetts, 02454, USA

    Peter Conrad

Authors
  1. Peter Conrad
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Peter Conrad .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Department of Sociology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2nd Ave S 1720, Birmingham, 35294-1152, Alabama, USA

    William C. Cockerham

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer Science + Business Media Dordrecht

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Conrad, P. (2013). Medicalization: Changing Contours, Characteristics, and Contexts. In: Cockerham, W. (eds) Medical Sociology on the Move. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6193-3_10

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation