Medicalisation: Impact on Society and Health

Running head: MEDICALISATION
MEDICALISATION
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MEDICALISATION
Medicalisation can be described as the procedure by which certain aspects of the human
life come to be considered as the medical problems when the same problems were not considered
to be pathological before (Busfield 2017). However, in the domain of sociology, medicalisation
is not considered to be an entirely new concept. This assignment will discuss about the different
aspects of medicalisation in details arguing its positive and negative impacts on the society.
About forty years ago, Ivan Illich had been found to make accurate analysis of the
iatrogenesis of different types of ailments. This word has been mainly derived from a Greek
word and can be described as “originating from a physician/treatment” (Morphett et al. 2017).
According to the researcher, the term social iatrogenesis can be explained as the proliferation of
the disorders that are mainly seen to be caused by extending the medical categories in the
everyday lives. An example can be provided here for simplification of the concept. This can be
referred to the lowering of the levels of tolerance for different types of psychological discomfort
as well as sadness that in turn had brought about a steadier increase in the of the diagnosis of the
mental disorder of depression. Another of the study by (Van et al. 2016)) stated that during the
same period, the procedure of the indefinite medicalisation to be an important feature of the
society. The researcher stresses on the role of doctors in deciding what was normal and what
would be pathological. One of the authors who were researching on the history of medicalisation
was seen to be stating:
“From sex to food, from aspirins to clothes, from driving your car to riding the surf, it seems
that under certain conditions or in combination with certain other substances or activities or if
done too much or too little, virtually anything can lead to medical problems” (Coveney et al.
2019)

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MEDICALISATION
Hill et al. (2016) had considered medicalisation in the form of three respects. One of
them is called the conceptual medicalisation where medical lexicons are used in defining non-
medical entities. Here, he had given an example where the natural drooping of breasts which was
previously considered as associated outcome after pregnancy and breastfeeding had now
medicalised and now diagnosed as the “mammary ptosis”. Another aspect associated with
medicalisation is called the institutional medicalisation. It has been found that when physicians
have the power for steering non-medical personnel which was later referred by other researchers
as the professional dominance (Van et al. 2016). This can be explained with examples like
physicians being managers in different hospitals without having academic title in management as
well as in business administration. Another aspect of medicalisation is called the interactional
medicalisation. There are many situations when a physician while interacting with the patient
participates in redefining a social problem into a medical one like homosexuality concept which
was later listed in the pathology in the DSM until that in the year of 1983.
Several of the literatures have also explained about the engines of medicalisation. These
engines of medicalisation are consumers, biotechnology as well as the managed care. Ryang
(2017) is of the opinion that consumer is one of the factor of medicalisation as health in seen to
be increasingly becoming and had already become a commodity. In the present generation,
people are seen to use the medical terminologies increasingly for analyzing their own health after
being influenced from watching television and also browsing the internet. Moreover, it is also
found that television advertisements and others on the radio, social media and others have made
people to consider health needs that otherwise they would not have thought about. Two examples
can be provided here. One of the new social representations of the health and illness that had
emerged is, like for instance, the representations of the idealized beauty as well as the different

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MEDICALISATION
parallel treatments of cosmetic surgery. Many of the studies have also talked about the body
being increasingly considered as the “text” through which people can transmit signals as well as
information. Another important engine is the technology. This is one of the driving factors of
that of medicalisation for a number of reasons (Woodward and Shaw 2017). Firstly, it can be
stated that new diagnostic tools mean more of the chances in discovering illnesses. Then, in most
cases, the risk factors are considered to be pathological and then they are treated. The irony was
often many of the pharmaceutical firms came up with new diagnoses and also provided “right
treatment”. Another important engine for medicalisation is called the managed care. This can be
explained with the help an example (Tseng 2017). Depression can be explained as the condition
which is caused by chemical imbalances that legitimates the treatment that remains based on pill
rather than on the expensive psychotherapies. Based on these aspects, social problems can be
transformed into the medical ones. One of the researchers in United States has been seen to be
stating that “It seems likely that physicians prescribe pharmaceutical treatment for psychiatric
disorders knowing that these are the types of medical interventions covered under managed
care plans, accelerating psychotropic treatments for human problems” (Bell 2017). In the year
1997, it was found that laws which were based for the regulation of the pharmaceutical
advertisements became less restrictive and this resulted in the expenditure of the prescription
drugs ads to get increased by four times between the year 1998 and 2007. Many of the studies
have also supported the fact that increase in advertising had resulted in the stimulating diseases
mongering strongly. It has been found that one of the commonly utilized procedures in the
advertisements of the drugs is the strategy of overstating the risks of certain situations which in
true sense was actually misleading the consumers. People are increasingly encouraged for