Sociological Perspectives of Health and Illnesses

Running head: SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES OF HEALTH AND ILLNESSES 1
Sociological Perspectives of Health and Illnesses
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SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES OF HEALTH AND ILLNESSES 2
Illnesses and health issues are inevitable in human lives. The aforementioned are
brought about by various determinants of health amongst them, sociological determinants. This
essay will, therefore, venture deeply into two sociological perspectives of health and outline
the major arguments between the two. Also discussed in brief will be the biomedical model, its
significance in health determination and its relevance to health practitioners of any social
setting.
The study of human social institutions and relationships is known as sociology. As a
subject, it covers all aspects of human life; religion and crime, family and state settings, health
issues amongst others (Wani, 2017). At a personal level, sociology digs into the social causes of
things such as gender and racial identity, family conflicts, aging issues, causes of illnesses and
poor health and religious faith affiliations. At the societal level, issues considered include crime,
law, poverty, and determinants of health and illnesses amongst larger groupings of people. For
the analysis of all the aforementioned, sociology implements various approaches known as
perspectives to obtain the best results. For health practitioners, however, sociology is of much
importance in their career paths as it explains occurrences of diseases and approaches available
to remedy spread or treat such illnesses in the community (Hinote & Wasserman, 2016).
Biomedical model of health has dominated amongst all health determinants. Here,
rather than using sociological and/or psychological arguments to determine the causes of
illnesses amongst individuals, health researchers focus on scientific, physical and biological
aspects to establish the causes (Yuill, Crinson, & Duncan, 2010). This model exerts more
emphasis on diagnosing and treating people based on findings different from lifestyle
conditions. Doctors’ attention is diverted to reverse the physical health of an individual to a pre-
illness state. Establishing the external causes of an illness is therefore not the epicenter of this
model. For all individuals, this is the first model that comes into their minds when they think of
health care. The key figures that are deemed important in this model are doctors and hospitals
as the main focuses of medicine and other curative interventions.
The core expectation is usually that a doctor is in the position to ‘fix’ the patient’s
condition while the patient plays a passive role (Davis & Gonzalez, 2016). It is, therefore, a

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES OF HEALTH AND ILLNESSES 3
doctor’s responsibility to identify the illness or disease after performing diagnostic tests or
through observation of symptoms that exhibit in the patient. Some of the most diagnostic tests
performed include; scans, X-rays, blood tests, mammograms, and ultrasound. Upon completing
the examination stage and establishing the disease or illness, the doctor is again tasked with
coining the most suitable intervention to implement on the patient for curative purposes
(Nicoll, Lu, Pignone, & McPhee, 2012). The most common interventions are; medicine
prescription, hospitalization for advanced and patient-centered care and surgical operations if
need there be. From the above description, it is therefore clear that the biomedical model is of
much value in clinical research and practice.
There are various sociological perspectives on illnesses and general health. The
functionalist perspective is based majorly on the works of Emile Durkheim, Robert Merton,
Herbert Spencer and Talcott Parsons. Collectively, their arguments point out that, illnesses are
forms of deviances that interrupts the communal functions of a society (Clarke, 2013). The
ability of individuals to perform their duties and responsibilities in the society is impaired by ill
health. If too many people are therefore unhealthy, the stability and functioning of the entire
society suffer adversely. Parson further added that this was true particularly on incidences of
premature deaths. He argued that such deaths hinder individuals from performing all their
social roles to completion and subsequently, negative returns are incurred on the society based
on the various costs of prenatal period, delivery, child upkeep and socialization of the person
who dies.
According to Parsons, for an individual to be considered validly ill, there are several
expectations that ought to be met. First, sick persons should not be viewed as the causals of
their own illnesses (Kendall, 2016). If, for example, a drunk driver hits a tree and ends up
incapacitated, people are most likely to show less sympathy than if the driver had been driving
sober and was hit by another vehicle driving on the wrong side. Secondly, all sick people must
possess a desire to get well quickly. If any ill individual does not want quick recovery or, they
are viewed as counterfeiting their illnesses, or indolent even after recovering, people in close
contact with such an individual or even the society in general no longer considers them as
legitimately sick.