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This paper argues that children, as an important social group, repay study in connection with the sociology of health and illness. The paper outlines the neglect of children within medical sociology and goes on to open up a discussion towards a sociology of child health. The paper makes three main points. First, consideration of the case of health and illness helps understanding of children's social positioning as a minority group. Secondly, children present a clear case for considering people as embodied health care actors. Thirdly, taking account of children in the sociology of health requires rethinking the division of labour and inter-generational relationships within it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to contribute to the recent debate within the field of inequalities in health that has focused on the relationship between income distribution and health. This has contested the extent to which the main effects of income on health are not directly related to material standards but operate through psychosocial mechanisms, linked to how people experience and perceive their relative position. However, whilst this has focused attention on the qualitative dimensions of income inequality as a potential determinant of health inequality, very little empirical work has directly examined lay perspectives. In this study I attempted to address this gap by exploring how two groups of working class men living in contrasting socio-economic areas understood and experienced differences in income and material circumstances and how these were perceived to impact on their health. This study shows that the anger and resentment felt by these men had their roots largely in the perceptions of others and the way others treated them, rather than in income differentials per se. There was little evidence of feelings of shame or inferiority. For men at the bottom of the social ladder, financial hardship was additionally perceived as having the greatest impact on their health and well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes how the categorisation of patients by staff in a French emergency department (ED) leads to the micro-rationing of care. Although ED staff are reluctant to acknowledge it, they refuse to treat many would-be patients at the reception stage, and advise them to go to other care settings (such as general practitioners’ premises or social dispensaries). The study analyses the judgmental categories staff use to decide patients’ eligibility for care, paying particular attention to their clinical, organisational, moral and social dimensions. Staff ration care at the point of service delivery but they soften the harshness of the rationing by making a positive discrimination in favour of those seen to be in real need. Data from observations and interviews are used to analyse the tensions between the different models of ‘local justice’ employed by doctors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social scientists of medicine have largely, although by no means exclusively, focused their research on illness and sickness thus obscuring social scientific investigations of positive health and wellbeing. Undoubtedly, important reasons exist for this but the relevance of studying `healthy' bodies requires emphasis and wider acknowledgement within the newer (embodied, non-dualistic) sociology of health and illness. This is necessary because the concrete corporeal manifestations of `health' in everyday life - components of and preconditions for embodied social practice - may, paradoxically, erode bodily capital while simultaneously contributing to it. Using qualitative data generated during an ethnography of bodybuilding subculture, this paper contributes to the sociology of `healthy' (transgressive) bodies. it describes the somatic representation of health and youth, the so-called erotics of the gym and the perceived benefits of anaerobic exercise for everyday pragmatic embodiment. Contra critical feminist studies, it furthers an appreciative understanding of `risky' bodywork in post- or late modernity and underscores the value of bringing healthy lived bodies into medical sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on sociologist Everett Cherrington Hughes and his work. On January 5, 1983 Everett Hughes died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, aged 86. His death followed a long and distinguished career both as a writer and teacher, in which he had a profound influence on the development of sociology. His thought and work gave rise to particular forms of sociological inquiry and pervade a number of substantive domains within the discipline. Although not a medical sociologist, Hughes perhaps more than anyone else is responsible for placing medicine and health care on the sociological agenda and his approach continues to inform the study of health and illness. Despite his influence, Hughes's own work remains relatively unknown amongst social scientists and our familiarity with his thought and ideas derives largely through the many empirical studies of his students, colleagues and associates. Perhaps the most influential parts of Hughes's work, certainly within the sociology of health and illness, are his numerous essays concerning work and occupations.

This paper demonstrates the potential interest for the sociological understanding of medicine and health as social institutions of the qualitative study of collective behaviour. it takes, as a case study, the transformation of a widely-circulating contemporary legend, `The Missing Kidney' into a rumour in Nottingham, and elsewhere in the United Kingdom, in 1992. Possible methodological approaches and interpretations are considered, making particular use of the work of the French sociologist, Edgar Morin, and the `mass society' tradition of social theory. it is argued that neither provides an adequate understanding of the phenomenon and that medical sociologists should look to the Chicago tradition of work on collective behaviour, represented by Park and Blumer for inspiration. Using this, it is suggested that the Missing Kidney offers useful insights into lay thinking about professional work and its strategies for the informal social control of medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an overview and appraisal of work published during the 25–year history of Sociology of Health and Illness that has contributed to our understandings of lay experiences of health and illness. It highlights an important and welcome shift from an ‘outsider’ perspective as epitomised in the Parsonian concept of the ‘sick role’ to one that focuses directly upon people’s subjective experiences within the contexts of their daily lives. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which early work by Bury (1982), Charmaz (1983), and Williams (1984) has helped pave the way to an understanding of lay experiences that is sensitive to a broad range of micro– and macro–contextual influences. The article looks to the future as well as the past by pointing to ‘uncharted terrain’ and ‘missing voices’ within the medical sociology literature. It discusses some recently published work in the Journal that has opened the door to what may prove to be a 21[sup st] century sociology of health and illness. It concludes with a call for medical sociologists to be more open–minded to the use of novel and seemingly unconventional theoretical and methodological approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women, typically, have been the focus for discussions of health inequalities in relation to gender. Now research on prostate illhealth turns attention to the neglected area of men's health and to men's disadvantage in health. Drawing on evidence of men's experiences and perspectives of their health, the complexities of the workings of gender in relation to health are explored, using current theorising around masculinities, hegemonic masculinity, negotiated gender and the disaggregation of gender from sex. Touching also on a range of other related issues including methodological ones, the discussion offers ideas towards better understanding of gender in relation to health disadvantage. In the context of the continuing concern about health inequalities, there is scope not only for documenting 'hidden' health disadvantage among men, but also for reviewing how health disadvantage by gender is framed and analysed; both are useful to inform health policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists may look at the social world from a variety of perspectives. Depending on their point of view, they will focus on some of the puzzles of social life and ignore others. Different questions will be asked. Alternative means of answering questions will be considered. There have recently been several attempts to classify the theoretical approaches adopted by sociologists. The discrepant sociological views are evident in the substantive sub-discipline of the sociology of medicine. Medical sociologists have begun with contrasting and contradictory, or merely divergent assumptions about the social world and about ways of understanding this world. At times they have described or analysed an aspect of medical sociology from such widely differing points of view as to appear to be discussing a different phenomenon. But, the fact that sociologists of medicine take many approaches is an advantage not a disadvantage. There is some agreement that sociology may be categorized as entailing three distinct perspectives.