The development of medical sociology in theory and practice in Western Europe 1950-1990

Abstract

In the first part of the paper, the demographic profile and health patterns of Western Europe after the Second World War and the changes which occurred in the following decades are traced. So too are developments in medical sciences and in the organization of health services as well as changes in the economic, social and cultural patterns in society generally. These, as well as the developing theoretical interests and practical policy concerns of social scientists, are held to have set the scene for the characteristic features of medical sociology as they have changed in the last 50 years. In the second part, emphasis is given to the tension between the sociologists of and the sociologists in medicine, particularly apparent in the British context These are held to have had an institutional and career-driven base but to have had positive as well as negative effects on the subdiscipllne.