Medicalization of Social Problems

Abstract

Medicalization is a key concept in sociology, referring to the process by which an increasing array of personal and social phenomena come to be described and understood in medical terms. Concerned primarily with the ways by which social problems are described and defined, constructionist approaches to social problems have utilized medicalization to examine the ways that medical language has been used to describe an increasing array of social problems. Drivers of the proliferation of medical definitions have been identified as the expansion of expertise, the interests of pharmaceutical and biotech companies, and consumerism. Contextual factors include secularization, the growing power of medical and scientific knowledge, the decline of tradition, and the shift of political focus from production to consumption. Though benefits are generally recognized, medicalization studies usually foreground the process’s negative results. Studies utilizing both medicalization and constructionism are subject to general criticisms effecting either approach, including overstating the problem and theoretical inconsistencies.