Let's get into the sociology of health and medicine. This will be a crash course to get you acquainted with the field.

The field of sociology is broad but bounded by a fundamental set of theoretical texts. Unsuprisingly, these texts are cishet white male centric

Medicine emphasizes the biological, genetic, and physiological aspects of health and illness. Sociology emphasizes the social aspects of health and illness

Health sociology looks at how illness and health are defined socially, culturally, and historically. It also looks at reactions to illness and how that is shaped by society and culture

Medical sociology (compared to health sociology) looks at the healthcare infrastructure, patient-provider relationships, social factors in diagnosis and treatment, etc.

I will take a quick look at three fundamental theories in health sociology

1. Stress

Leonard Perlin is best known in the sociology of stress.

Pearlin, L., and McCall, M. E. (1989). “The Sociological Study of Stress.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior. 30: 241-256

"Most begin their work by looking directly at potential stressors that reside in individuals’ experience without regard to the possible structural origins of the stressors. Sociological inquiry does not have the option of ignoring these origins."

"The distinguishing mark of sociological inquiry is its effort to uncover patterns and regularities shared by people whose social characteristics and circumstances are similar."

"The essential element of the sociological study of stress is the presence of similar types and levels of stress among people who are exposed to similar social and economic conditions, who are incumbents in similar roles, and who come from similar situational contexts. "

"Therefore, a salient feature of sociological stress research is its concern it the socially patterned distribution of components of the stress process"

Role overload: Demands on energy and stamina exceed the individual’s capacities

Sociologist Arlie Hochschild coined the term "second shift" to describe women's unequal distribution of unpaid household labor such as cleaning, cooking, and caregiving

"A central task of research into stress is to explain why individuals exposed to stressor conditions that appear to be similar do not necessarily suffer the same outcomes. "

"Part of this explanation lies in social values. By values I refer to what is defined socially as good, desirable and prized or as something to be eschewed. Values regulate the effects of experience by regulating the meaning and the importance of the experience."

Marginalized groups face the additional burden of discrimination stress, from microaggressions to hate crimes, which adversely affects physical and mental health

This accumulates over the life course and over generations, increasing health disparities. The effects have less of an impact when buffered by psychosocial factors such as self-esteem, a sense of control, or social support

2. Fundamental causes

Link and Phelan are known for their theory of fundamental causes. This theory can be described as looking at the "causes of the causes" of health disparities

Link, B. and J. Phelan (2010). “Social Conditions as Fundamental Causes of Health Inequalities.” In C. Bird, P. Conrad, A. Fremont, and S. Timmermans (Eds.) Handbook of Medical Sociology, Sixth Edition. Nashville, Vanderbilt University Press: 3-17

Many health interventions are based on the risk-factor approach that tells us to focus on “modifiable” intervening risk factors like diet, smoking, exercise, pollution, and preventive health behaviors

Link and Phelan tell us that this approach will always come up short. Racism-based health disparities will only end when racism is ended. Same for gender disparities, class disparities, sexuality disparities, etc.

"The connection between SES and mortality persists across time and space. The reproduction of the connection between SES and mortality in vastly different circumstances speaks to its irreducibility"

When we create new knowledge, discover new things, and engineer new devices to assist in ending health disparities, the privileged always have more access to them, thus exasperating these disparities

3. Lifestyles

Max Weber provided the theory of lifestyles where he bucked the notion of free choice and analyzed how people's choices are limited by their social positioning. Statis groups share similar lifestyles

Circling back to "modifiable" risk factors, sociologists look at the disparities in how modifiable health behaviors such as smoking and alcoholism for different groups based on social position

How modifiable is someone's diet who lives in a food desert?

Lifestyles are all about consumption and not production

For example, zoning disparities give liquor stores more access to low-income areas thus creating a disparity in the choice to drink alcohol