Cockerhamn William C. (Editor). The New Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology

Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2010. — 616 p. — (The Blackwell Companions to Sociology). — ISBN : 978-1-4051-8868-5.The New Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology is the latest book in Blackwell’ s Companion series that brings together leading scholars in the various subdisciplines of sociology to provide current discussions of the most important issues and research in their respective fields.
This edition continues this process by providing insightful chapters from both established and rising young scholars on health - related topics of central interest in medical or health sociology.
The contributors are from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, and Singapore who were carefully selected to write chapters on topics in which they were recognized experts. This edition differs from its predecessor in that all chapters are on substantive topics. Country/regional perspectives from around the world are not included since Blackwell ’ s editors felt little signifi cant change in the social organization of health care had occurred in the various countries or regions since the publication of the earlier volume in 2001.
The link between medical sociology and sociological theory is crucial to the subdiscipline.
Theory binds medical sociology to the larger discipline of sociology more extensively than any other aspect of the sociological enterprise. Theory is also what usually distinguishes research in medical sociology from socially oriented studies in allied fi elds, like public health and health services research. Whereas seminal sociological contributions in quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis, along with many fundamental concepts of social behavior, have been adopted by multidisciplinary approaches in several fi elds, sociological theory allows medical
sociology to remain unique among the health - related social and behavioral sciences. This could be considered as a somewhat surprising statement because medical sociology has often been described in the past as atheoretical. It is true that much of the work in the fi eld historically has been applied to practical problems rather than theoretical questions. That is, it was intended to help solve a clinical problem or policy issue, rather than develop theory or utilize it as a tool to enhance understanding. Medical sociology was not established until after World War II when the American government provided extensive funding through the National Institutes
of Health for joint sociological and medical research projects. The same situation prevailed in Western Europe, where, unlike in the United States, few medical sociologists were affi liated with university sociology faculties and connections to the general discipline of sociology were especially weak (Claus 1982 ; Cockerham 1983 ). It was primarily through the stimulus of the availability of government funding that sociologists and health professionals embraced medical sociology as a new subdiscipline. Funding agencies were not interested in theoretical work, but sponsored research that had some practical utility in postwar society as Western governments
had come to realize that social factors were important for health.Introduction - Health and Social Inequalities - Health and Social Relationships - Health and Disease - Health Care Delivery - New Developments.