Main description:

Sarah Nettleton's The Sociology of Health and Illness has become a cornerstone text, popular with students and academics alike for its rigorous and accessible overview of the field. Building on these strengths, the fourth edition integrates fresh insights from the current literature with the core tenets of traditional medical sociology, providing students with a thorough grounding in the sociology of health and illness.

The text covers a diversity of topics and draws on a wide range of analytic approaches, spanning issues such as the social construction of medical knowledge, the analysis of lay health beliefs, concepts of lifestyles and risk, the experience of illness and the sociology of the body. It also explores matters that are central to health policy, such as professional-patient relationships, health inequalities and the changing nature of health care work. A new chapter has been added, on the sociology of mental health; other chapters have been updated with illustrative examples and questions for discussion.

Written for students of the social sciences, this book will also appeal to students taking vocational degrees, such as nursing, medicine and public health, who require a sociological grounding in the area. Thoroughly revised and fully updated, this fourth edition will prove invaluable to anyone looking for a clear and engaging introduction to contemporary debates within the sociology of health and illness.

Contents:

Preface to First Edition

Preface to Second Edition

Preface to Third Edition

Preface to Fourth Edition

1 Introduction: The Changing Domains of the Sociology of Health and Illness

2 The Social Construction of Medical Knowledge

3 Health Practices, Lay Beliefs, Lifestyles and Risk

4 The Experience of Chronic Illness and Disability

5 Sociology of Mental Health and Illness

6 The Sociology of the Body

7 The Sociology of Innovative Health Technologies

8 The Sociology of Lay-Professional Interactions

9 Social Inequalities and Health Status

10 Health Care Professions and Practitioners in Late Modernism

11 Developments in Health Policy: A New Paradigm for Health Care?

Bibliography
Index