Peter Conrad

Valerie Leiter

This engaging and accessible reader takes a social problems approach to health and medicine, providing a broad and critical lens on contemporary health problems. Designed for courses on social problems and on medical sociology, the volume embraces two fundamental principles: that health and illness are at least partly socially produced, and that health care is not an unfettered good and often brings with it serious social problems. The volume is organized into six sections, addressing the medicalization of human problems; the social construction of health problems; social movements; gender; race and class and the provision of health care; and medical accountability. Taken together, the essays demonstrate the depth and richness of a social problems approach to health and medicine, and the critical perspective it brings to our understanding of health and illness in U.S. society.

Health and Health Care as Social Problems

Now with SAGE Publishing! The Tenth Edition of The Sociology of Health and Illness: Critical Perspectives addresses the crucial issues in this field with over 45 readings (1/3 of which are new to this edition) from the scholarly literature on health and medicine, thus providing students with the most balanced and comprehensive analysis of health care today. This best-selling anthology from Peter Conrad and Valerie Leiter includes both micro-level and structural perspectives, frameworks for understanding these critical issues, and a breadth of material that allows instructors to mix and match materials to meet their course needs. New to this Edition 17 readings are new to this edition. All introductions by the editors have been updated to reflect new readings and the latest data. The sections on Financing Medical Care and Health Care Reform have been merged to reflect the current debate about health policy taking place largely within the context of financing. The section previously called Comparative Health Policies is now called Global Issues, with an expanded scope that includes health inequalities between countries, the globalization of ADHD, and the international migration of health care workers. New material on the dilemmas of medical technology provides both a conceptual framework for understanding the key issues as well as a case study about genetic counseling to help students apply those concepts directly. New readings on illness, medicine, and the internet offer increasingly relevant information on how individuals address health and illness in their increasingly technology-dominated lives. A new section on globalization helps students understand the impact of factors such as the international pharmaceutical industry, international migration, and the role of the internet.

Valerie Leiter

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