What is the definition of medicalization in sociology?

What is the definition of medicalization in sociology?

Medicalization refers to the process in which conditions and behaviors are labeled and treated as medical issues. Critics have labeled this over-medicalization or disease mongering, since by labeling normal health variants as pathological states, medical industries have made enormous profits.

What is an example of medicalization sociology?

Examples of medicalized disorders include menopause, alcoholism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anorexia, infertility, sleep disorders, and erectile dysfunction (ED) [3].

What is race based medicine?

For centuries, race-based medicine in the United States has aimed to identify biological differences between racial groups that could then be used to tailor health care to members of those groups.

What are the levels of medicalization?

Medicalization can occur on at least three distinct levels: the conceptual, the institutional, and the interactional levels.

What is medicalization in sociology quizlet?

Medicalization. medicalization is medicine given to individuals and also, the process by which human conditions and problems come to be defined and treated as medical conditions, and thus become the subject of medical study, diagnosis, prevention, or treatment.

Is race medically relevant?

Background. The role of patient race in medical decision-making is heavily debated. While some evidence suggests that patient race can be used by physicians to predict disease risk and determine drug therapy, other studies document bias and stereotyping by physicians based on patient race.

What is the definition of medicalization sociology quizlet?

What does the word medicalized mean?

Definition of medicalize transitive verb. : to view or treat as a medical concern, problem, or disorder those who seek to dispose of social problems by medicalizing them— Liam Hudson.

What caused the medicalization of obesity?

Obesity was medicalized for several reasons, with the hopes of reducing the stigma of being “fat”, recognition of it being more serious than just will power, and to recognize its severity.

Is race a biological variable?

Many public health disciplines have been ahead of other fields in rethinking racial categories as variables in our research, including acknowledging that race is a social, not biological, concept.

Why is race important in healthcare?

Conversely, black physicians in the study believed that race is important for treatment decision-making, provides useful information for choosing medication, understanding disease risk, and is associated with social determinants (socioeconomic factors and cultural beliefs about illness) for the patients’ health.

What is race in sociology definition?

Race is a human classification system that is socially constructed to distinguish between groups of people who share phenotypical characteristics. Since race is socially constructed, dominant groups in society have shaped and informed racial categories in order to maintain systems of power—thereby also producing racial inequality.

Is there a scientific basis for the classification of race?

Yet modern evidence shows there is little, if any, scientific basis for the racial classification that is the source of so much inequality. Because of the problems in the meaning of race, many social scientists prefer the term ethnicity in speaking of people of color and others with distinctive cultural heritages.

What does medicalization mean in sociology?

( noun) The process by which something is defined as “unhealthy” and in need of treatment. Medicalization is the opposite of demedicalization. Bradby, Hannah. 2009. Medical Sociology: An Introduction. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

How is race socially constructed?

Introduction Race is a human classification system that is socially constructed to distinguish between groups of people who share phenotypical characteristics. Since race is socially constructed, dominant groups in society have shaped and informed racial categories in order to maintain systems of power—thereby also producing racial inequality.