SOC102H1 Study Guide - Maternal Death, American Psychiatric Association, Mortality Rate
Document Summary
Much social construction and labelling also go into perceiving and dealing with illness and disease. Aronowitz calls our attention to the process of framing disease", which he considers an underappreciated mechanism for the social patterning of health". Epidemiologists have focused on material and psychosocial causes of illness. Aronowitz, however, argues for the need to note the ways we generally recognize, define, name and classify disease states and assign them to a cause or set of causes. These framing effects influence: beliefs about health and illness, patterns of consumption and other behaviours, perceptions of what interventions and policies work, class, ethnic, and other social dynamics, clinical and public health practices. The thomas dictum" proves correct about sick as well as healthy behaviour: what we believe to be true is true in its consequences. In one sense, illnesses are personal problems that we face: we alone feel the physical and neurological pains.
