bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Racism, Health, and Health Care
Authors: Karlsen Saffron , Roth Marilyn A. , Bécares Laia
Published: February 2014

The international empirical evidence which exists exposing the relationship between racism and health is compelling. Interpersonal racism directly affects mortality and a wide range of physical and mental health conditions and health‐related behavior for both children and adults. Racism also has indirect health effects: as a consequence of institutional racism people from most ethnic minority groups live their lives at a socioeconomic disadvantage relative to other groups, which in turn affects their health and well‐being. Racism influences people's interactions with health services, both as a consequence of the ways in which the attitudes of health care providers affect the diagnosis and care of people with different ethnicities and also due to the impact that experiences of institutional racism (in health care and other settings) have on people's willingness to seek preventive or curative care. Achieving ethnic health equity demands that we address the impact of racism on health.
Stem Cell Research
Authors: Kent Julie
Published: February 2014

There has been a growing interest in the potential of new types of cell therapies to treat a variety of diseases and conditions including stroke, spinal cord injury, eye disease, neurodegenerative conditions, diabetes, heart disease, blood disorders, wound care, and male pattern baldness. These cell therapies may be seen as part of wider development of “regenerative medicine” and the growth in markets for human tissues and cells
Mexican Americans, Health of
Authors: Ganduglia Cecilia , Franzini Luisa
Published: February 2014

Mexican American health has several paradoxical characteristics. Despite having the highest disparities in healthcare access, facing several socioeconomic problems, and having a higher risk of certain pathologies such as diabetes and obesity, the life expectancy and mortality rates of Mexican Americans are better than those of non‐Hispanic whites. Several explanations of this phenomenon, known as the “Hispanic paradox,” have been proposed including data artifacts, migration patterns, and immigrants beliefs and behaviors.
Neighborhood Disadvantage and Well‐Being
Authors: Carpiano Richard M.
Published: February 2014

Significant attention in recent years has been paid to understanding how the places that people inhabit in their daily lives also matter for their health and well‐being. This entry considers the role of neighborhoods and local area living conditions – particularly socioeconomically disadvantaged locations – for shaping personal health risk factors, health behaviors, and overall health and well‐being. It begins by discussing the various features and mechanisms through which neighborhoods can be health promoting and/or health damaging for residents. Next, it reviews quantitative and qualitative research methods used for assessing the health implications of neighborhood social and physical environments. Finally, it highlights some key emerging areas of scholarship on neighborhood health effects – research foci that aim to fill important knowledge gaps not only about how places matter for health, but also how to design place‐based interventions to promote health and reduce health disparities.
Organ Donation and Race
Authors: Kierans Ciara
Published: February 2014

Race in the context of organ donation is a domain where biology, genetics, society, and culture overlap in frequently troubling ways. Despite the insistence among many in the social and natural sciences that there is no such thing as race, important questions about the status of race as a classificatory category continue to be raised. Race remains endlessly controversial, problematic in its uses, and widely contested.
Gender and the Body
Authors: Broh Beckett A.
Published: February 2014

While biological differences certainly exist, significant scholarly work has indicated that observed differences between women and men result much more from social, not biological, processes, and women's characteristics are undervalued relative to men's in many societies. Cultural and structural forces focus attention, develop meaning, and assign value to female and male bodies. In turn, female and male bodies are used to construct and reinforce cultural notions of gender. These social forces affect women's and men's behaviors, life experiences, and life outcomes.
Disease Diffusion
Authors: Schærström Anders
Published: February 2014

Diffusion is a spatial–temporal process, the spread of something between locations – a movement across space and a change through time. As an explicit spatial phenomenon, diffusion is a core issue and concept in geography. Thus,disease diffusionrefers to the variable spatial occurrence of ill health, such as the epidemics of infections, caused by the spread of disease agents through space and time. Conventionally, diffusion studies have focused on infectious diseases, but the occurrence of non‐infectious disorders may display similar trends in space and time. Disease diffusion constitutes an urgent public health issue on local, regional, national, and global levels.
Gender and Mental Illness
Authors: Busfield Joan
Published: February 2014

Research provides evidence of a distinctive gendered landscape of mental illness, with women and men differing in the types of disorder they commonly experience – a landscape that is not specific to Western societies. While there are no marked gender differences in the rates of psychoses like schizophrenia or in dementia, women have higher levels of affective disorders, such as depression, and of anxiety disorders, and men have higher levels of substance abuse and conduct disorders. Consequently the observed gender difference in overall levels of mental illness depends on what disorders are included in the measure. The gendered patterning of mental disorders is now usually linked to differences between women and men in gender‐related tendencies to internalize or externalize their feelings, women more often internalizing their feelings and men more often externalizing them. While such differences may be influenced by genetic factors, they also relate to the socialization of women and men in childhood – a gender socialization that is linked to the expectations of what is required of them in adult life. Further differences in women's and men's social situations also have a direct impact on the gender‐related expression of feelings in the face of life events and difficulties.
Biopolitics
Authors: Filipe Angela M.
Published: February 2014

Biopolitics, as defined by Michel Foucault, is what makes life and its mechanisms enter the explicit calculations of government. As with other notions in the philosopher's work, biopolitics evokes a methodological turn to the archaeological or genealogical inquiry which permeated his entire work. This aspect would be groundbreaking not only in terms of approach but also in terms of substantive studies he carried out in such topics as medicine, psychiatry, childhood, and sexuality throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In one way or another biopolitics has inspired innumerous research pieces across the human and social sciences and has permeated a wide range of concerns and debates in contemporary thought, summarized here as regimes of government of life; identity, biosociality and biocitizenship; and vital and micro‐biopolitics.
Health Inequalities
Authors: Lang Thierry , Lombrail Pierre
Published: February 2014

Social inequalities in health are extremely high internationally, but they exist also within each country, even in the poorest countries. All stages of life are involved in health inequalities; they are constructed and become established over time, and certain inequalities present during childhood are the harbingers of others in adulthood. The causes of inequalities are multiple, and several levels of explanation coexist, including both proximal causes and fundamental causes. A large number of areas are concerned, including education, access to employment and working conditions, retirement age, housing policy, and lastly policies of redistribution, by taxation and by direct financial aids. Inequalities can be worsened by changes or innovations whose overall effects on health are nevertheless positive. Access to care and the cost of care have direct effects on inequalities. But even if barriers are absent at this level, this is not enough to guarantee equality of care. Social inequities in health both equate to, and result from, social inequities in general.
Cancer Prevention
Authors: Gotay Carolyn C.
Published: February 2014

Cancer rates are rising across the globe. However, about half of cancer cases can be prevented through modifying risk factors, including tobacco use, exposure to infectious agents, poor nutrition, obesity, and physical inactivity. Reducing these risks requires a global commitment to an integrated multisectoral approach to intervention.
Mental Illness in the United States, Treatment of
Authors: Watson Dennis P. , Wright Eric R.
Published: February 2014

This entry provides an overview of the historical changes that have occurred regarding the treatment of mental illness in the United States. Both the locus and focus of treatment have shifted significantly since the eighteenth century. People displaying symptoms of mental illness are no longer considered patients in need of institutionalization, but are instead consumers who have the right to direct their own care in community settings. Along with this shift, recovery, rather than symptom management, has become the primary goal of treatment.
Communities of Practice
Authors: Vaughan Suzanne , Dornan Tim
Published: February 2014

Communities of practice is a sociocultural theory of learning. Initially described in a book by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger in 1991, the term
communities of practice
refers to the social environment in which learning takes place. Communities of practice theory has been adopted widely within and outside health care, and it proves to be a useful lens through which to investigate the situated learning of health care professionals who have well‐established traditions of apprenticeship. Communities of practice theory takes a mid‐level stance between structure and agency, describing how practices shape and are shaped by individuals. More recently Wenger has developed the concepts within communities of practice theory to reflect the importance of individual identity formation in learning and competence.
Drugs: Public Policy
Authors: Rooke Catriona
Published: February 2014

“Drugs” are a category of substances that influence human sensation, perception, mood, and behavior. A wide range of drugs are currently used for non‐medicinal purposes. The ways in which their production, circulation, and use are controlled varies substantially: from the prohibition by international law of a range of substances including opiates and cocaine to the minimal control of caffeine. Sociological, anthropological, and historical studies of drugs have demonstrated that the positioning of a drug as legal or illegal is the result of social processes and have underlined the socio‐legally constructed nature of modern understandings of drugs. The contemporary public debate on drug policy has been dominated by debates over prohibition versus legalization of drugs. These discussions are seen as closing off considerations of the social issues that are at the root of many of the harms attributed to drug use or policies.
Patient Trust
Authors: Pollock Kristian
Published: February 2014

Trust involves the confident expectation that an institution or person can be relied upon to honor implied or established commitments to an individual and to protect their interests. It is particularly salient to the experience of being a patient, where matters of health and illness carry huge personal significance. Trust is widely assumed to be valued highly by patients and significant to health care outcomes, for example, by promoting willingness to seek and comply with treatment and perhaps even as a core constituent of “therapeutic relationships.” As yet, there is little justification for concerns that patient trust is declining in response to social and cultural changes affecting the organization and delivery of health care in advanced industrial societies. However, the promotion of the patient as an expert consumer and self‐manager of health and illness directly challenges patient trust in professional expertise. It is not yet clear how the tension between the desire for trust, dependency, and informed autonomy may be resolved.
Public Health
Authors: Henry Emmanuel , Gilbert Claude
Published: February 2014

The notion of public health differs from that of health per se insofar as it concerns not individuals but groups and populations. Thus, with the notion of public health, the main concern is the health of a collective of any nature. The focus is on the way in which groups exposed to health risks are identified, distinguished, and controlled, and more generally on the way in which societies are governed today. As Michel Foucault showed, we tend to think of government less as a direct relationship between a sovereign and individuals/subjects, than as the way of controlling and framing the relatively autonomous lives of a population; in other words, as a biopolitics.
Health, Men's
Authors: Speice Travis D.
Published: February 2014

The growing literature discussing men's health identifies ways that biology and social factors influence men's health outcomes. Social constructions of masculinities, combined with other social factors such as age, race, marital status, and socioeconomic status all influence men's health behaviors and likelihood of illness. Additionally, cultural considerations also affect men's health outcomes, particularly on a global scale.
Sex, Sexuality, and Health Geography
Authors: Sothern Matt
Published: February 2014

Medical geographers have long mapped the differences in mortality and morbidity between men and women. Since geography's cultural turn of the 1980s, health geographers have increasingly explored the way socially constructed gender norms influence health behaviors and outcomes. Working with an understanding that health is more than simply the absence of disease, health geography has stressed how geographically differentiated economic structures impact on women's health; the gender bias in the provision of formal and informal health care in a variety of settings; and how the experiences of living with ill health are figured through gender and spatial structures.
Hospitals in the United States
Authors: Budrys Grace
Published: February 2014

Hospitals are institutions that reflect the social values and understandings regarding what needs to be done for persons who are unable to care for themselves. Early recorded history describes hospitals as entities set up to care for soldiers during time of war; centuries later hospitals were being established to look after the poor (sick or not) who were not being cared for by friends and relatives.
Race and the End of Life in the United States
Authors: Rosenblatt Paul C.
Published: February 2014

“Race” is a concept rooted in racism, and so to understand “race at the end of life” one must understand the devastating power of racism to produce differences between racial groups in life expectancy and infant mortality. In the United States, racial differences in life expectancy and infant mortality reflect the ways that racism has operated and still operates in health care, exposure to environmental pollution, assignment to dangerous jobs, and many other areas of life. There are also historical traumas that play out intergenerationally, particularly among Native Americans, Alaskan Natives, and perhaps Mexican Americans in ways that affect mortality. In the end‐of‐life care people receive, there are to some extent racial differences, and these reflect partly cultural differences and partly past and present realities associated with racism in end‐of‐life care. The story about race and end of life is very much the story of racism in end‐of‐life care.
Professions and the Public
Authors: Pescosolido Bernice A.
Published: February 2014

The issue of professions in the area of health and illness tends to revolve almost exclusively around the profession of medicine and its powervis‐à‐visother medical groups, including most importantly, nursing. Classical sociological theory maintains that, despite the appropriation of the label “profession” to many occupations in contemporary society, only those occupations that hold a position at the top of a division of labor can truly be called professions. Occupations that are sociologically classified as professions must be autonomous and self‐directing, having gained control over the substance (or content) of their own work. In contrast to early theories of medical professions, these theories, referred to as theories of professional dominance, recognized that power and prestige rested on two factors – gaining as much of a monopoly in healing as possible, and gaining wider societal support. The former, monopoly status, was achieved through a political process of legal licensing (the necessary condition of “professional dominance”), while the latter could only could only come from broader public support (the sufficient condition of “consulting status”).
Health Professions and the State
Authors: Burau Viola
Published: February 2014

The relationship between health professions and the state is complex and constantly in flux. This is reflected not least in the changing views of how health professions relate to the state and vice versa. From a perspective of professionalism as a “third logic” of governing, distinct from the state and the market, the relationship between professions and the state emerges as distant and as a matter of conflict over autonomy. In contrast, from the perspective of historical and cross‐country comparative studies, the relationship between professions and the state is seen more as an interplay embedded in highly specific conditions of time and place. This also brings into view the health professions beyond medicine, such as nurses and midwives. Finally, from the perspective of governance the boundaries between health professions and the state become blurred and instead health professions and the state are viewed as an intrinsic part of governing health/health care.
Emergency Departments
Authors: Vassy Carine
Published: February 2014

Emergency departments appeared during the second half of the twentieth century and, as such, are relatively new areas of hospitals. These departments are designed to deal with people who wish to receive treatment and who arrive with no appointment – whereas in the past they would have been treated directly in the relevant department. Another characteristic of these departments is that they are open even when all other sources of care are unavailable.
Mental Illness, Anti‐Psychiatry Perspective of
Authors: Wurtzburg Susan J. , Thomson Nicholas
Published: February 2014

The anti‐psychiatry perspective of mental illness is a general critique of psychiatry, based on the premise that mental health practitioners lack rigor in their diagnosis of mental illness. While psychiatry has been criticized since its early development in the mid‐nineteenth century, these critiques received more attention from the general public in several developed nations during the 1960s, when several exposés of asylum practices were published. In the United States, this perspective developed into the anti‐psychiatry movement, synchronized with other civil rights‐based American social movements, eventually resulting in the closure of asylums and improved mental health patient rights. Patients themselves played a major role in agitating for psychiatric reform, eventually creating the mental health consumerism movement. Outcomes have been the growth of community‐based mental health services, and a growing homeless, urban‐based mentally ill community.
Social Welfare and Mental Health Care
Authors: Scheid Teresa L.
Published: February 2014

The field of mental health and illness is broad and interdisciplinary; hence the use of the term “social welfare” to capture the interdisciplinary nature of mental health care. Social scientists from the fields of psychiatry, psychology, sociology, social work, nursing, law, and criminology have all contributed to our understanding of what is needed to provide care, support, and treatment to those living with chronic mental illnesses. Psychiatry and sociology offer competing etiologies of mental illness, with psychology and social work articulating integrated bio‐psychosocial approaches. This entry will examine these contrasting views of mental health and treatment, ongoing scholarly debates, and systems of mental health care.
Geographies of Health and Risk
Authors: Curtis Sarah
Published: February 2014

Geographies of health are concerned with the associations between health and place and particularly with how and why human health may vary in relation to differences in conditions among places. While much of the “classic” work in the field of medical geography has been concerned with clinically defined diagnostic categories of disease, more recent developments in health geography consider a wider interpretation of health which includes socially constructed ideas of good health and well‐being as well as illness. Health geography is concerned with both mental and physical health.
Health Care Delivery System: Sweden
Authors: Ahgren Bengt
Published: February 2014

In Sweden it is a public sector duty to finance and facilitate the provision of health care. It is thus a “Beveridge” health care system. All residents have accordingly the right to obtain the publicly financed health care. The system is decentralized and includes 21 county councils and 290 municipalities. Furthermore, it rests on a democratic platform: each of these authorities is governed by a parliament, with its representatives elected for a four‐year period at every general election.
Children's Geographies of Health
Authors: Fagg James
Published: February 2014

Geographies of health for children and young people (CYP) explores how the health of children and young people is related to the physical, social, and political environment. Central to this body of work is the idea that CYP are differentiated from adults. They are recognized as important social actors whose experiences of place and space, and health and ill‐health vary from adults. Finally, CYP are not a homogeneous group and geographies of health vary across social dimensions and international, national, and local contexts. Children's health geographies can be drawn into two broad types, with quite different underlying epistemologies but complementary in their focus. The first examines the child or young person, or populations of children and young people as the subject of interest. In the context of geographical work, the focus of studies might be independently observed aspects of the young person's health status and of their local circumstances. The second type of study seeks to prioritize the views of children and young people as social actors to gain their views about their experience of health and place. This work is discussed within a framework of landscapes commonly used in broader reviews of health geography.
Geographies of Health Inequality
Authors: Pearce Jamie
Published: February 2014

This entry demonstrates that there are distinct and rising geographical inequalities in health at a range of scales from the global to the local levels. Spatial inequalities in health are of long standing and have been monitored in the United Kingdom since at least Victorian times. It is clear that social, political, and economic forces matter greatly for understanding both social and spatial inequalities in health. Geographical explanations for the spatial polarization of health and why this divide is growing are multifaceted, and include features relating to the ecological, social, and built environments that operate over the life course.
Racism and Health
Authors: Penner Louis A. , Hagiwara Nao
Published: February 2014

Members of racial/ethnic minorities typically experience poorer health than do members of racial/ethnic majorities. This entry examines how racism produces disparities between the health of members of disadvantaged racial/ethnic minorities and members of advantaged racial/ethnic majorities. Racism involves beliefs, feelings, and actions that denigrate members of certain racial/ethnic groups. Two pathways link racism to health disparities. The first is through racism's direct impact on people's health. Experiencing racism is a powerful environmental stressor, which activates the same kind of physiological responses that occur during any stressful experience. Continued activation of these responses negatively affects people's health. Racism also negatively affects people's mental health and can cause them to engage in unhealthy behaviors. The second pathway is through racism's negative impact on the health care people receive. Patients who have experienced high levels of discrimination are less satisfied with their medical care and less likely to follow providers’ treatment recommendations. Provider racial bias can affect treatments they choose for minority patients and the quality of medical interactions with them. Minority patients can detect subtle, implicit, provider racial bias and this negatively affects how they react to providers and their health behaviors after medical interactions.
Clinical Trials and Race in the United States
Authors: Scalfani Michael T.
Published: February 2014

This entry examines the issues surrounding minorities’ willingness to participate in research studies. This is an important topic because some data shows that minority groups are less willing to participate in health research than are non‐Hispanic whites. At the same time, in order for clinical trials to be generalizable, participation from all groups is required. Without their participation, we will likely witness greater disparity in health outcomes. This topic is complex as it deals with a historical context of minorities’ past experiences with clinical research studies, but also with a growing body of data suggesting that possibly there are other barriers to participation besides willingness that result in minorities being underrepresented in research trials.
Socioeconomic Status and Physical Health
Authors: Budhwani Henna
Published: February 2014

Socioeconomic status – comprising education, income, and occupational prestige – is one of the most compelling predictors of physical health and life expectancy worldwide. As socioeconomic status increases, health outcomes improve (known as thesocial gradient in health). Each component of socioeconomic status impacts health through different but interconnected pathways: income represents spending power and thus financial capability to afford medical care. Occupational prestige denotes behaviors associated with work (e.g., working in a mine as compared to working in an office building), and education stands for the ability to access resources through knowledge and skills.
Stress, Social Capital, and Health
Authors: Anderson William A.
Published: February 2014

Within sociology, stress is generally defined as an event or circumstance that results in acute or chronic discomfort or dis‐ease for the individual. The function of stressors and their relationship to health outcomes is conceptualized in the stress process model that outlines how stressors affect health outcomes and how that relationship is affected by mediating resources such as social support. Social capital refers to the resources that arise from social relationships and social structure. Social capital is hypothesized to be related to health in that it provides an individual with resources to cope with otherwise health‐deleterious circumstances and events. Within stress and health research, social support is the most widely studied form of social capital. Other forms such as trust, civic engagement, and giving/volunteering have not been widely studied.
Health Behavior
Authors: Cockerham William C.
Published: February 2014

Health behavior is the activity undertaken by individuals for the purpose of maintaining or enhancing their health, preventing health problems, or achieving a positive body image. It is not limited to healthy people trying to stay healthy, but also includes the physically handicapped and persons with chronic diseases who seek to control, minimize, or contain their affliction through positive forms of health behavior, such as diet, exercise, and avoiding smoking.
Health Care, Communication in
Authors: Iedema Rick
Published: February 2014

This entry reviews the field of communication in health care research. It explains that health care communication is constituted of a range of practices that are quite traditional, and of a range of communication processes that are more recent, still emergent, and rather complex. Examples of traditional health care communication practices are clinician–patient consults and team handovers. More recent communication processes have arisen in response to health policy reform, pushing how clinicians communicate into new domains. To provide an overview of the field, the entry first looks at conventional domains of communication, such as doctor–patient consults and clinical handovers. It then exemplifies emergent kinds of communication by describing clinical incident investigation and open disclosure of those incidents to victims (i.e., patients) who have suffered clinician‐caused harm. Finally, these developments are summarized as three distinct trends defining contemporary health care communication practices.
Social Epidemiology
Authors: Cwikel Julie G.
Published: February 2014

Social epidemiology, as a subdiscipline of epidemiology, has grown in its relevance to modern medicine due to its intersection with behavioral medicine, sociology, health psychology and health interventions related to acute and chronic illness and health promotion to maintain health. In this entry, social epidemiology is defined as the systematic study of health and illness states, well‐being and social conditions and their determinants using public health and social sciences methods to develop interventions and programs that reduce the adverse impact of health hazards and promote and maintain health. The history of trends in public health from Europe, South Africa, and the United States are described as providing the basis of social epidemiological theory, and research methods and modes of practice in social epidemiology are reviewed. Emphasis is placed on the use of both qualitative and quantitative research tools to address public health challenges, and the SOCEPID model is offered as a heuristic guide to social epidemiological practice.
Midlife
Authors: Waite Linda J. , Hanis‐Martin Jennifer L.
Published: February 2014

Midlife usually refers to the period of an individual's life approximately between the ages of 40 and 65. Midlife, or middle age, is a European–American construction of mature adulthood according to chronological, biological, and medical terms, and is generally associated with declining vitality and the passing of youth, but also with peak performance and generativity. The concept of midlife as it is thought of now was not really possible until life expectancy was above 40 years, occurring in the late nineteenth century, when life expectancy began to rise sharply from about 46 to around 80. Until recently we learned about midlife primarily through studying other stages of life. But since the 1970s midlife has been identified as a topic worthy of study on its own, which is usually attributed to the recent, sharp increase in the number of middle‐aged adults. Currently in the United States about 80 million people are aged 45 to 65 – that is, 26 percent of the population.
Health and Disease, Emotional Geographies of
Authors: Davidson Joyce
Published: February 2014

Emotional geographies of health and disease explore how the affective aspects of place condition our understanding and experience of illness and wellness. Emotional geographers pay particular attention to spatial and scalar relations, not least in terms of embodiment and the emotionally laden negotiation of overlapping identities that are assumed by, or imposed upon, patients and carers. Scholars working in this field draw heavily on the work of feminist and phenomenological approaches and take inspiration from scholars working in non‐representational theory and psychoanalysis. This intellectual heritage aligns emotional geographers more closely with social rather than medical models of health and disease. Practitioners tend to focus on the lived aspects of health, understood not simply as the absence of disease. This entails exploration of what it feels like to embody deviations from an ideal health status in terms, for example, of disability, disorder, and differences of other (including cognitive and psychosocial) kinds.
Health, Political Economy of
Authors: Cockerham Geoffrey B.
Published: February 2014

The political economy of health is rooted in the development of the concept of political economy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It has, however, only emerged as a research program over the last few decades. Much of this research utilizes a Marxist, class‐based approach to explain the quality of health both within countries as well as globally. It has tended to focus on political, economic, and psychosocial factors in explaining health outcomes. A key contribution of the political economy of health is its emphasis on how these factors affect health. This approach goes beyond biology and medicine in researching how national economic policies and public interventions by the state may impact and contribute to the quality of population health.
Structural Functionalism
Authors: Dew Kevin
Published: February 2014

Structural functionalism is a sociological approach that dominated in the middle part of the twentieth century, and is particularly associated with the work of Talcott Parsons. Its foundations can be found in the earlier work of sociologists and anthropologists, with Émile Durkheim being a significant theorist in this regard. A basic premise of structural functionalism is that society needs a certain level of social cohesion, solidarity, or integration in order to function, and structural functionalists can be regarded as attempting to identify, and perhaps promote, the sources and forms of social cohesion.
Environmental Health and Community Activism
Authors: Wakefield Sarah , Castel Evan
Published: February 2014

Community activism is a common occurrence in situations where actual or perceived environmental health is threatened. How this activism is undertaken has changed over time, but remains an important issue in environmental health research and practice.
Medical Education and Pierre Bourdieu
Authors: Brosnan Caragh
Published: February 2014

A recent development in the sociology of medical education is the application of concepts from the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. This has seen the reconceptualization of earlier theoretical standpoints and has helped to highlight previously under‐researched areas of medical education. Four specific aspects of medical education that Bourdieusian work has significantly contributed to understanding are discussed: the socialization process and development of the medical habitus; embodiment in medical training; struggles over legitimate knowledge; and social justice in medical education.
Africans, Health of
Authors: van Rensburg Dingie , Engelbrecht Michelle
Published: February 2014

Africa is a vast continent, divided into the sub‐Saharan south and the Arab north. The diverse geographic, cultural, and societal makeup explains the varying morbidity and mortality patterns, and shapes the health‐related beliefs, behaviors, and practices of Africans. Socioeconomically, the least developed countries in the world are in Africa, implying huge backlogs in living standards and a widespread lack of health services. Consequently, Africans generally fare poorly on core health indicators (infant, under‐5, and maternal mortality), and are heavily burdened by communicable diseases. Increasing globalization, Westernization, and urbanization have changed the living conditions and lifestyles of Africans, with concomitant increases in non‐communicable and lifestyle diseases. Over centuries, African health systems have been shaped by multiple factors. Western‐type health care was introduced by waves of Europeans settlers and missionaries. However, Africans strongly maintained traditional ways of explaining, diagnosing, and treating disease. From this emerged mixed health systems, variably containing elements of traditional and allopathic care, and delivered in free‐market (private) and state‐provided settings. Western‐type care remains in many African countries weakly developed and urban‐concentrated. Amid chronic shortages of resources, new care models are emerging. The general availability of African traditional healers means that large proportions of Africans prefer African traditional healing over allopathic medicine.
Medical Education and Evidence‐Based Medicine
Authors: Yardley Sarah , Dornan Tim
Published: February 2014

Evidence‐based medicine (EBM) dominates the current era of medical research and practice. The concept of EBM has now traveled beyond its original context into the field of medical education. This entry describes key historical developments in the construction of EBM, alongside a critical analysis of its strengths and limitations. The transferability of EBM principles into medical education is considered alongside problems which EBM could address within education and problems which its use created. An outline of different research ontologies and epistemologies is used to contextualize further discussion of evidence and theories of knowledge within medical education before turning to the classification of education evidence. This entry concludes with an overview of current emphases in research and theory before considering future directions for the use of “evidence” in medical education. Illustrative examples are used throughout.
Health Care Delivery System: South Africa
Authors: Moorman Julia , de Jager Pieter , Volmink Heinrich , Naidoo Shan
Published: February 2014

Since South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, the country's health care system has gone through several distinct periods in terms of restructuring. Between 1994 and 2004 the health care system underwent a period of post‐apartheid reconstruction. This was followed by a period between 1999 and 2004 that was characterized by a period of changing disease profiles. The period from 2004 to date has seen an expansion of primary health care services, and today, in 2013, significant health care reforms are underway.
Income Inequality Hypothesis
Authors: De Maio Fernando G.
Published: February 2014

The income inequality hypothesis asserts that an individual's health is influenced not only by their own level of income, but by the level of inequality in the area in which they live. It has been an integral element of the social determinants of health literature. The hypothesis draws on several interrelated fields of study, including psychosocial research on chronic stress, social capital research on the strength of community ties, as well as work from political economy on the health effects of neoliberalism. New research has signaled the need for a more global approach to the hypothesis.
Disability Theory
Authors: Goodley Dan
Published: February 2014

Theories of disability have developed over the last 30 years in response to the politicization of disabled people and the growing awareness of this political praxis in a myriad of social science, humanities, health, and social welfare disciplines. Disability theory has also connected with and troubled the professions of medicine, social care, social work, psychology, education, nursing, midwifery, and physiotherapy. In similar ways to other transformative enterprises, such as feminism, critical race, postcolonialism, queer, and Marxism, disability theory has developed in highly nuanced, historically contingent, and socioculturally responsive ways. When one thinks about the development of disability theory it is possible to identify a number of aims and ambitions. This entry provides an inevitably partial but hopefully illuminating account of some of the contributions of disability theory.
Differential Exposure
Authors: Gibson Philip A.
Published: February 2014

The differential exposure hypothesis is a key sociological contribution to the stress and health literature. It proposes that individuals in disadvantaged social status groups are exposed to more stressors than those occupying advantaged social status groups. Research on differential exposure has progressed from investigating the influence of stressful life events to incorporating the effects of cumulative stressors. The genesis of the differential vulnerability hypothesis, which suggests that disadvantaged social status is related to increased vulnerability to stress, provides an alternative to differential exposure. Research in the field of stress and health continues to test the relative merits of differential exposure and differential vulnerability, reflecting the ongoing structure–agency debate inherent in sociological research.
Substance Abuse Etiology
Authors: Cheung Yuet‐wah
Published: February 2014

This entry summarizes some of the major factors at the biological, psychological, and social levels that influence drug abuse. Biological factors include the euphoria effects of drug abuse as reinforcement, and genetic predisposition to drug abuse. Examples of psychological factors are reward‐seeking, impulsivity, temperament, self‐control, impaired personality, and self‐efficacy. Social factors pertain to the socio‐demographic characteristics of the individual and also the societal conditions that impact on the individual's drug abuse behavior. The causality between various factors and substance abuse can be reciprocal. Also, factors at the same level and at different levels can interact to affect substance abuse.
Stress Management: Health Workers
Authors: Baker Lisa
Published: February 2014

Health workers deal day to day with stresses that are unique to their position. Working within settings and contexts that serve people with medical and mental health needs can produce an environment filled with stressors. While not unique to health care, some specialty occupations and work environments exhibit characteristics that are more likely to generate occupational stress than others. Typically those jobs include high responsibility, little down time during the work day, difficult requirements, the possibility of negative outcomes or consequences, lack of personal control and lower recognition. Health workers outside of medical organizations, such as paramedics and emergency medical technicians, are also susceptible.
Medical Schools as Professional Workplaces
Authors: Ovseiko Pavel V. , Buchan Alastair M.
Published: February 2014

Despite their different historical origins and separate development up until the beginning of the twentieth century, different types of medical schools around the world have been following convergent paths ever since. Today, medical schools in most countries are part of universities and have research and education facilities embedded in their affiliated or owned teaching hospitals. Academic physicians and scientists employed by medical schools form the core part of academic health centers, with the tripartite mission of research, education, and patient care. Practitioners and scholars alike have traditionally focused on the integration of the academic and clinical enterprises and how different models of organizational relationships and governance arrangements could improve the delivery of the tripartite mission. In recent years, there has been a marked change in the approach to the promotion of academic–clinical integration, with an emphasis on alignment and organizational culture.
Vaccination as a Public Health Measure: Challenges
Authors: Poland Caroline M. , Poland Gregory A.
Published: February 2014

Despite the widespread availability of safe and effective vaccines, population‐level vaccine coverage rates lag far behind ideal levels. The result is continued outbreaks of disease, epidemics, and substantial morbidity and mortality. While multiple causes for this state of affairs are discernible, three major issues are challenges associated with developing, promulgating, and implementing vaccine recommendations; challenges with educating health care providers and the populace on the need for recommended vaccines; and challenges with the provision of vaccines. In this entry we discuss each of these challenges, and offer both illustrations and feasible solutions.
Body, Medicine and the
Authors: Strathern Andrew J. , Stewart (Strathern) Pamela J.
Published: February 2014

This entry deals with changing interrelations between ideas and practices of medicine and ideas regarding the body. Its major purpose is to highlight the cultural and linguistic linkages that tie together medicine and the body in specific cross‐cultural case studies. It presents first a discussion of the assumptions made about the body in classic biomedical thinking, and proceeds to contrast these assumptions with other cases, where notions of healing the whole person rather than an autonomous body are in play. This topic is pursued by means of the theoretical approach of embodiment. Materials from Chinese culture, from the Navaho people, from Turkey, and from the Temiar people are considered, in order to illustrate different ways in which embodiment theory illuminates the relationship between medicine, the body, and the total environment in which people live.
Stress among the Homeless
Authors: Wasserman Jason Adam
Published: February 2014

In some ways, homelessness can be viewed as a situation of extreme poverty, thereby reflecting all of the same related health disadvantages. However, there are aspects of homelessness not necessarily encountered by housed people who are poor. These pose unique risks and challenges for health among the homeless generally, and their experience of stress in particular. Indeed, homeless people report significantly higher levels of stress than do housed low‐income people, and this is especially true among children. Focusing primarily on the United States, this entry explores ways in which stress results from the condition of homelessness, its effects on the health of homeless people, and the mechanisms of coping that they employ.
Prenatal Diagnosis and Screening
Authors: Vassy Carine
Published: February 2014

The purpose of prenatal diagnosis is to detect fetal anomalies. A large number of these anomalies cannot be cured; therefore, one of the principal steps taken for an anomaly considered to be serious is to abort. These techniques are now widely used in industrialized countries, where the number of anomalies identified and the levels of detection are on the increase. What differences from the norm are deemed unacceptable? Should public authorities fund these tests in order to avoid inequality, where access is available to higher income levels only? How can we avoid a routinization of screening which prevents women from understanding that they must make choices? How can we stop disabled children from being considered as medical errors?