Health, Medicine, Disability, and Aging: Understanding the Impact on Society
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Presentation Transcript
Chapter 13 Health, Medicine, Disability and Aging
Chapter Outline • Health • Medicine • Disability • Aging • Death and Dying
The Black Death • In 1346, rumors reached Europe of a plague sweeping the East. • The epidemic spread along trade routes to China and Russia. • Within 2 years, the Black Death, killed 1/3 of Europe’s population. • The plague still ranks as the most devastating catastrophe in human history.
Life Expectancy • The average age at death of the members of a population. • Life expectancy in the United States was 47 years in 1900. In 2009, it was 78 years. • The maximum average human life span is the average age of death for a population under ideal conditions. • It is currently about 85 years.
Leading Causes of Death • INSERT TABLE 13.1 HERE (PG. 309)
Polling Question • Do you currently smoke cigarettes? • Yes • No
Life Expectancy, Selected Countries • INSERT FIGURE 13.1 HERE (PG. 310)
Social Causes of Illness and Death • Human-environmental factors - Cancer causing pollutants in the air and water. • Lifestyle factors - cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, diet, social isolation • Public health and health-care systems - access to clean water, basic sewage, immunizations
Public Health System • The public health system is composed of government run programs that ensure access to clean drinking water, basic sewage and sanitation services, and inoculation against infectious diseases. • The health-care system is composed of a nation’s clinics, hospitals, and other facilities for ensuring health and treating illness.
Global Inequities • AIDS is the leading cause of death in the poverty-stricken sub-Saharan Africa • Global inequality influences people’s exposure to different health risks
People with HIV/AIDS, 2009 • INSERT FIGURE 13.2 HERE (PG. 311)
Infant Mortality • The number of deaths before the age of 1 year for every 1000 lives births in a population in 1 year.
Health Indicators, Selected Countries, 2009 • INSERT TABLE 13.2 HERE (PG. 312)
Reasons for Health Inequity • The poor are more likely to be exposed to violence, high-risk behavior and environmental hazards. • The poor cannot afford adequate health care.
Racial and Ethnic Inequalities in Health Care • Racism also affects health • Health status of some African Americans is somewhat lower than European Americans even within the same income category • African Americans at all income levels tend to live in racially segregated neighborhoods with fewer health facilities • Experience of racism induces psychological distress
Gender Inequalities in Health Care • Gender bias exists in: • Medical research: More research has focused on “men’s diseases” (cardiac arrest) than “women’s diseases” (breast cancer). • Medial treatment: Women undergo fewer kidney transplants, cardiac procedures, and other treatments.
Gender Inequalities in Health Care • Women live longer and thus have greater lifetime risk of disability and chronic illness; yet more is spent on men’s health than women’s health • 40% more poor women than poor men and poverty is related to health
Health and Politics: Conflict and Functionalist Perspectives • We spend more on health care than any other country but all other postindustrial societies have healthier populations • A high level of social inequality • Nature of American health care system where some are privileged (wealthy) and others are disadvantaged (poor)
4 Problems with HMOs: Strategies to Pursue Profit • Avoid covering sick people and people who are likely to get sick. • Minimize the cost of treating sick people they can’t avoid covering. • Inflate diagnoses to maximize reimbursements. • Keep overhead charges high.
Advantages of Private and For-Profit Health Care • They are so profitable, they can invest large sums of money into research and development, latest diagnostic equipment, higher salaries to attract best medical researchers on planet • Main supporters of current system are the stockholders
Medicine • A social institution devoted to prolonging life by fighting disease and promoting health. • Society shapes medical practice every bit as much as it influences health processes.
The Professionalization of Medicine • Professionalization, is the process by which people gain control and authority over their occupation and their clients. • It results in professionals enjoying high occupational prestige and income and considerable social and political power
The Sick Role • Playing the sick role, according to Talcott Parsons, involves the nondeliberate suspension of routine responsibilities, wanting to be well, seeking competent help, and cooperating with health-care practitioners at all times.
Alternative Medicine • The most frequently used types of alternative medicine are chiropractic, acupuncture, massage therapy, and various relaxation techniques. • Alternative medicine is used mostly to treat back problems, chronic headache, arthritis, chronic pain, insomnia, depression, and anxiety.
Placebo Effect • The positive influence on healing of strong belief in the effectiveness of a cure. • Research shows that strong belief in the effectiveness of a cure can by itself improve the condition of about a third of people suffering from chronic pain or fatigue.
Holistic Medicine • Holistic medicine emphasizes disease prevention. • Holistic practitioners treat disease by taking into account the relationship between mind and body and between the individual and his or her social and physical environment.
Social Construction of Disability • Impaired people are considered deficient in physical or mental capacity. • Disabled people are incapable of performing within the range of “normal” human activity.
Rehabilitation • Rehabilitation involves: • Curing disabilities to the extent possible through medical and technological intervention. • Trying to improve the lives of the disabled by means of care, training, and education. • Integrating the disabled into “normal” society.
Ablism • Prejudice and discrimination against disabled people. • Historical example: Belief among 19th-century Western educators that blind people were incapable of high-level or abstract thought. • Ablism involves the largely unintended neglect of the conditions of disabled people.
Challenging Prejudice and Discrimination • Idea of the normality of disability has partly supplanted the rehabilitation ideal • Rather than regarding themselves as deviant, they think of themselves as inhabiting a different but quite normal world
Age Stratification • Age stratification refers to social inequality between age cohorts. • The very young are often at the bottom of the stratification system. • Facing poverty and famine, parents sometimes abandoned children. • Many developing countries are overflowing with orphans and street children.
Gerontocracy • A gerontocracy is a society ruled by elderly people. • In South Korean corporations when a new manager starts work, everyone in the department who is older than the new manager may resign or be reassigned. • In the United States, median income gradually rises with age, reaching its peak in the 45–54 age cohort.
Age Stratification: Functionalist Theory • Age stratification reflects the importance of each age cohort’s contribution to society. • In preindustrial societies, the elderly were important for knowledge and wisdom. • With industrialization, function of the elderly became less important and their status declined.
Age Stratification:Conflict Theory • Age stratification stems from competition and conflict. • Young people may participate in a revolutionary overthrow and seize power. • The elderly may organize politically to decrease disadvantages and increase advantages in life.
Age Stratification: Symbolic Interactionist • Focus on the meanings people attach to age-based groups and age stratification. • One study examined movies from 1940-1980. • Young people were portrayed as leading active, vital lives. • Elderly women were portrayed as unattractive, unfriendly, and unintelligent.
Aging and Poverty • The “old old” are most likely to suffer physiological decline, life-threatening diseases, social isolation, and poverty. • Economic inequality between elderly women and men is the result of women’s lower wages when they are young. • The elderly most likely to be poor include the “old old” , women, African Americans and people in rural areas.
A Shortage of Caregivers • In 2001, home-care agencies and nursing homes employed 2.1 million caregivers in the United States. • The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics expects a 58% rise in demand for such workers between 1998 and 2008.
Ageism • Ageism is prejudice and discrimination based on age. • Examples: • Elderly men are stereotyped as “grumpy” and elderly women as “haggard”.
Polling Question • I don't value older people in our society as much as younger people. • Strongly agree • Agree somewhat • Unsure • Disagree somewhat • Strongly disagree
Death and Dying • In traditional societies most people accepted death. • Most people believed in life after death. • The dying were not isolated. • Because the dying had experience giving emotional support to other dying people, they accepted death as part of life.
Euthanasia • Involves a doctor prescribing or administering medication or treatment that intended to end a terminally ill patient’s life. • Public opinion polls show about 2/3 of Americans favor physician-assisted euthanasia.
Euthanasia • Between 33% and 60% of American doctors say they would be willing to perform euthanasia if it were legal. • Nearly 30% of American doctors have received a euthanasia request, but only 6% say they complied.
The Business of Dying • Funerals were a $20-billion-a-year industry in 1999. • The average undertaker’s bill in the late 1990s was $4,700. • Adding expenses such as flowers and cemetery charges, the average funeral and burial bill grew to $7,800.
Why Are Funerals Expensive? • Big corporations have supplanted small family operations in the funeral industry. • Concentration of ownership lowers competition and results in higher prices. • People are vulnerable when their loved ones die, and much of the funeral industry takes advantage of their vulnerability.
1. Life expectancy is: • the average age at death of the members of a population • the maximum human life span • the maximum average human life span • the mortality rate
Answer: a • Life expectancy is the average age at death of the members of a population.
2. When sociologists measure the health of a population, they typically examine: • rates of illness • rates of death • rates of physical fitness • a. and b. only
Answer: d • When sociologists measure the health of a population, they typically examine rates of illness and rates of death.
