This wide-reaching handbook offers a new perspective on the sociology of health, illness and medicine by stressing the importance of social theory. Examining a range of classic and contemporary female and male theorists from across the globe, it explores various issues including chronic illness, counselling and the rising problems of obesity.

Table of Contents

• List of Figures and Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 The Sociology of Health, Illness and Medicine: Institutional Progress and Theoretical Frameworks - Fran Collyer and Graham Scambler
• Part I The Nineteenth-Century Theorists
• 2 Harriet Martineau and Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Forgotten Women in the Study of Gender and Health - Ellen Annandale
• 3 Karl Marx and Frederich Engels: Capitalism, Health and the Healthcare Industry - Fran Collyer
• 4 Florence Nightingale: A Research-Based Approach to Health, Healthcare and Hospital Safety - Lynn McDonald
• 5 Émile Durkheim: Social Order and Public Health - Kevin Dew
• 6 Émile Durkheim and Thomas Luckmann: Religion, Post-Christian Spirituality and Mental Health - Rosemary L. Aird
• 7 George Herbert Mead: Meanings and Selves in Illness - Linda Liska Belgrave and Kathy Charmaz
• 8 Max Weber: Bureaucracy, Formal Rationality and the Modern Hospital - William C. Cockerham
• Part II The Early Twentieth-Century Theorists
• 9 Ludwik Fleck: Thought Collectives and the Sociology of Medical Knowledge - Kevin White
• 10 Norbert Elias and Erving Goffman: Civilised-Dramaturgical Bodies, Social Status and Health Inequalities - Peter Freund
• 11 Alfred Schutz: The Co-construction of Meaning within Professional-Patient Interaction - Patrick Brown
• 12 Antonio Gramsci and Pierre Bourdieu: ‘Whiteness’ and Indigenous Healthcare - Angela Durey
• Part III The Mid-Twentieth-Century Theorists
• 13 Talcott Parsons: His Legacy and the Sociology of Health and Illness - Evan Willis
• 14 Robert Merton: Occupational Roles, Social Status and Health Inequalities - Johannes Siegrist
• 15 George Libman Engel: The Biopsychosocial Model and the Construction of Medical Practice - Marilys Guillemin and Emma Barnard
• 16 Harold Garfinkel: Lessons on Emergent Behaviours in Complex Organisations - Peter Nugus and Jeffrey Braithwaite
• 17 Margaret Stacey: The Sociology of Health and Healing - Hannah Bradby
• 18 Erving Goffman: The Moral Career of Stigma and Mental Illness - Bernice A. Pescosolido
• 19 Eliot Freidson: Sociological Narratives of Professionalism and Modern Medicine - Michael Calnan
• 20 Ivan Illich and Irving Kenneth Zola: Disabling Medicalisation - Joseph E. Davis
• 21 Michel Foucault: Governmentality, Health Policy and the Governance of Childhood Obesity - Julie Henderson
• 22 Niklas Luhmann: Social Systems Theory and the Translation of Public Health Research - Samantha Meyer, Barry Gibson and Paul Ward
• 23 Jürgen Habermas: Health and Healing Across the Lifeworld-System Divide - Graham Scambler
• 24 Pierre Bourdieu: Health Lifestyles, the Family and Social Class - Kate Huppatz
• Part IV The Late Twentieth Century and Theorists of the Present
• 25 Colin Leys and Colin Hay: Market-Driven Politics and the Depoliticisation of Healthcare - Heather Whiteside
• 26 Vicente Navarro: Marxism, Medical Dominance, Healthcare and Health - David Coburn
• 27 Anthony Giddens: Structuration, Drug Use, Food Choice and Long-Term Illness - Jonathan Gabe and Joana Almeida
• 28 Anthony Giddens: The Reflexive Self and the Consumption of Alternative Medicine - Kate Hughes
• 29 Anthony Giddens: Risk, Globalisation and Indigenous Public Health - Eileen Willis and Meryl Pearce
• 30 William C. Cockerham: The Contemporary Sociology of Health Lifestyles - Brian P. Hinote
• 31 George Ritzer: Rationalisation, Consumerism and the McDonaldisation of Surgery - Justin Waring and Simon Bishop
• 32 Julia Kristeva: Abjection, Embodiment and Boundaries - Trudy Rudge
• 33 Magali Sarfatti Larson and Anne Witz: Professional Projects, Class and Gender - Ivy Lynn Bourgeault
• 34 Raewyn Connell: Hegemonic Masculinities, Gender and Male Health - John Scott
• 35 Raewyn Connell: Gender, Health and Healthcare - Maree Herrett and Toni Schofield
• 36 Donna Haraway: The Digital Cyborg Assemblage and the New Digital Health Technologies - Deborah Lupton
• 37 Mike Bury: Biographical Disruption and Long-Term and Other Health Conditions - Louise Locock and Sue Ziebland
• 38 Bryan S. Turner: Bringing Bodies and Citizenship into the Discussion of Disability - Gary L. Albrecht
• 39 Peter Conrad: The Medicalisation of Society - Simon Williams and Jonathan Gabe
• 40 Eva Feder Kittay: Dependency Work and the Social Division of Care - Michael Fine
• 41 Gøsta Esping-Andersen: Welfare Regimes and Social Inequalities in Health - Mikael Rostila
• 42 Bruno Latour: From Acting at a Distance Towards Matters of Concern in Patient Safety - Su-yin Hor and Rick Iedema
• 43 Paul Farmer: Structural Violence and the Embodiment of Inequality - Fernando De Maio