Sick Societies Research Articles

Addressing the Mental Health Crisis in Youth—Sick Individuals or Sick Societies?

This Viewpoint examines whether increased anxiety and depression among youth is a true epidemic of psychiatric disorders or a reflection of sociopolitical adversity and disorganization.

Paradigms of the Sick, Healthy, and Normal Security in Social Sciences

One of the many divisions of security exposed in the literature dealing with it is the ambivalent division into positive and negative security, which sometimes, somehow combined and mutually limiting, manifest themselves in normal and real security. Starting from this distinction, I develop their descriptions based on Erich Fromm’s explanations of a healthy, sick, and normal society. Simultaneously, I argue that sick societies pursue negative security by preferring war and destruction, while healthy societies pursue positive security by preferring love, peace, and creative activity. It is a preference based on striving, in the case of a healthy society and positive security, “to be”, as Fromm states, and in the case of a sick society and negative security, “to have”, and finally, in the case of normal security, to mutually limiting “to have” and “to be”. I deepen this description by referring to the thought of Bertrand Russell, in which positive and good security is defined “as one that should be by itself”, and negative and bad “as one that should not be by itself”. On the other hand, by bolding and broadening this description, I associate positive security (based on “to be”) with the concept of “civilisation of love”, “civilization of life”, and “civilization of brotherhood”, while negative security (embedded in “to have”) with “civilisation of killing”, “civilisation of overkilling”, and “civilisation of death”, and finally, normal security (embedded on mutually limiting “to be” and “to have”) with the liberal civilisation of security and control.

Sick Societies: Responding to the Global Challenge of Chronic Disease

Sick Societies: Responding to the Global Challenge of Chronic Disease

Sick Societies: Responding to the global challenge of chronic disease

Preface: Epidemiology of modern society 1. Evaluating the health burden of chronic diseases 2. Sick individuals, sick populations: the societal determinants of chronic diseases 3. Social and economic consequences of chronic diseases 4. Comprehensive strategies to reduce the burden of chronic diseases Part 1: Management of chronic disease Part 2: Prevention of chronic diseases 5. Politics of chronic disease Part 1: Political economy of chronic disease Part 2: Creating a social movement to raise the priority of global chronic disease 6. Activities of the Private Sector Part 1: The current and future role of the food industry in the prevention and control of chronic diseases: the case of PepsiCo Part 2: The corporate play book, health, and democracy: the snack food and beverage industry's tactics in context 7. Comparative case studies from Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa Part 1: Chronic diseases in Brazil Part 2: Chronic diseases in China Part 3: Chronic diseases in India Part 4: Chronic diseases in Mexico Part 5: Chronic diseases in South Africa 8. Responding to the global challenge of sick societies Appendix: Resources for Action

Sick Societies: Responding to the Global Challenge of Chronic Disease

Sick Societies: Responding to the Global Challenge of Chronic Disease

Sick Societies: Responding to the Global Challenge of Chronic Disease. Stuckler D, Siegel K (eds).

Sick Societies: Responding to the Global Challenge of Chronic Disease. Stuckler D, Siegel K (eds).

Sick Societies: Responding to the Global Challenge of Chronic Disease

Sick Societies: Responding to the Global Challenge of Chronic Disease

P. A. Kemp, A. Sundén and B. B. Tauritz (eds) (2006), Sick Societies?: Trends in Disability Benefits in Post-Industrial Welfare States. Geneva: International Social Security Association. CHF 40, pp. 241, pbk.

P. A. Kemp, A. Sundén and B. B. Tauritz (eds) (2006), Sick Societies?: Trends in Disability Benefits in Post-Industrial Welfare States. Geneva: International Social Security Association. CHF 40, pp. 241, pbk.

Health needs more than health care: the need for a new paradigm

It is a significant time for health policy in Europe. There is a growing recognition in many countries that simply pouring resources into health care services, especially those centred on acute hospital care, cannot be equated with good health. Indeed, before too long such services will become unaffordable and unsustainable in terms of their public funding from social insurance or taxation unless efforts are made to manage demand and move health policy in a different direction. The so-called diseases of comfort—the primary cause of death in the 21st century and the next—demand a different approach.1 Current approaches to tackle these diseases, with their heavy reliance on a medical model and on the ethos of markets and consumerism, are doomed to fail. A new paradigm is urgently needed, based on a holistic conception of health and on creating the conditions for health. We need to identify assets rather than deficits and look for, and build upon, positive patterns of health. Working with people to create tipping points for change should become the focus of public-health leaders. Only in this way can people be reconnected with their health and become co-producers of it. In so doing, we can begin to transform sick societies into healthy ones. The problem with the diseases of comfort does not lie principally in a lack of understanding. There is ample research and analysis testifying to the high levels of poor health evident in our societies and the extent of a widening health gap between social groups. There is also a sizeable body of evidence on what needs to be done about these failings, although there remain research gaps in our knowledge of what interventions work and are most effective. However, the chief impediment to secure sustainable change appears to lie in the absence of effective governance …

The Impact of Inequality – How to Make Sick Societies Healthier ‐ by Wilkinson, R.G. and Unequal Health: how Inequality Contributes to Health or Illness ‐ by Budrys, G.

<i>The Impact of Inequality – How to Make Sick Societies Healthier</i> ‐ by Wilkinson, R.G. and <i>Unequal Health: how Inequality Contributes to Health or Illness</i> ‐ by Budrys, G.

The Impact of Inequality - How to Make Sick Societies HealthierThe Impact of Inequality - How to Make Sick Societies Healthier

In recent decades, we in the western world have almost prided ourselves on our move towards a ‘classless’ society. Yet a divide of the haves and have-nots is replacing it, especially in health. This is the main thrust of Richard Wilkinson’s book.

The impact of inequality – how to make sick societies healthierThe impact of inequality – how to make sick societies healthier Richard G Wilkinson Routledge 341pp £19.99 0 415 37269 0 0415372690

The impact of inequality – how to make sick societies healthierThe impact of inequality – how to make sick societies healthier Richard G Wilkinson Routledge 341pp £19.99 0 415 37269 0 0415372690

The impact of inequality: How to make sick societies healthier

The impact of inequality: How to make sick societies healthier

Hans Staden and the Cultural Politics of Cannibalism

Hans Staden and the Cultural Politics of Cannibalism

A multilevel city health profile of Moscow

This report describes a multilevel city-wide profile of physical health in Moscow, examining individual and urban level factors. Objectives of the paper were to: (1) identify macro and micro risk factors for poor physical health in Moscow;(2) assess the effect of two dimensions of micro determinants — personal health habits and social connectivity, such as social cohesion, social support, and social networks; (3) examine the hypothesis that relative social inequality is a significant structural condition at the community level which influences the physical health of individuals, as a main and as a joint effect with psychosocial behaviors. A random sample of Moscow adults, with household telephones ( N=2000), was collected 17–19 September, 1991, and had a completed interview rate of 81.8%. The questionnaire replicated items from the California Alameda Study and the US Health Interview Survey. Respondents’ urban area of residence was linked to macro measures of inequality derived from the Moscow census. This report describes the baseline survey of a prospective study design. Results of this study demonstrate that the social context in a community affects the health of people living there independently from the effects of individual health lifestyle or social connectivity. The structural conditions in Moscow which significantly increased the vulnerability of specific social groups for poor physical health were identified in a hierarchical linear regression: relative social inequality in the form of income inequality; urban area poverty risks; and mean level of alcohol consumption in urban areas. The psychosocial conditions included poor diet, lack of social cohesion and social support, involvement in formal social networks in the form of professional groups. A multilevel theoretical perspective is important for defining the targets of preventive health policy by identifying the structural conditions which increase the health disadvantage of some social groups. Further research is needed in refining the concept of relative social inequality, as well as investigating whether psychosocial factors, such as social cohesion, are mediating links between sick societies and their sick citizens.

Walks on the dark side: “Sick societies,” Interpersonal violence, and anthropology's love affair with the folk society

Edgerton, Robert B., Sick Societies: Challenging the Myth of Primitive Societies. New York: The Free Press, 1992. vii + 278 pp. including notes, bibliography, and index. $24.95 cloth. Scheper‐Hughes, Nancy, Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. xiii + 614 pp. including notes, glossary, bibliography, and index. $35.00 cloth, $15.00 paper. Linger, Daniel Touro, Dangerous Encounters: Meanings of Violence in a Brazilian City. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993. x + 289 pp. including appendices, glossary, bibliography, and index. $42.50 cloth.

What is the good society for hominoids?

In Sick Societies, Robert Edgerton argues that the longstanding principle of cultural relativism is misguided. In its place, he claims, we need to evaluate both traditional and modern societies in terms of their commitment to providing a satisfying “quality of life” for their members. This essay takes up the merits of Edgerton's thesis by using primate data to analyze and consider human nature, the adaptation thesis, the nature of culture, and, on purely hominoid grounds, the “good” society for humankind.

Book Review: Sick Societies: Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony, by Robert B. Edgerton. New York: Free Press, 1992

Book Review: Sick Societies: Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony, by Robert B. Edgerton. New York: Free Press, 1992

If planning is everything, maybe it's nothing

Where planning does not measure up to expectations, which is almost everywhere, planners are handy targets. They have been too ambitious or they have not been ambitious enough. They have perverted their calling by entering into politics or they have been insensitive to the political dimensions of their task. They ignore national cultural mores at their peril or they capitulate to blind forces of irrationality. They pay too much attention to the relationship between one sector of the economy and another while ignoring analysis of individual projects, or they spend so much time on specific matters that they are unable to deal with movements of the economy as a whole. Planners can no longer define a role for themselves. From old American cities to British new towns, from the richest countries to the poorest, planners have difficulty in explaining who they are and what they should be expected to do. If they are supposed to doctor sick societies, the patient never seems to get well. Why can't the planners ever seem to do the right thing?

The Interpretation of Pueblo Culture: A Question of Values

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Interpretation of Pueblo Culture: A Question of ValuesJohn W. BennettJohn W. Bennett Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 2, Number 4Winter, 1946 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/soutjanth.2.4.3628541 Views: 9Total views on this site Citations: 16Citations are reported from Crossref Journal History This article was published in the Southwestern Journal of Anthropology (1945-1972), which is continued by the Journal of Anthropological Research (1973-present). PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:James D. Faubion On the character of character: an immodest proposal, Social Anthropology 26, no.22 (Feb 2018): 168–181.https://doi.org/10.1111/1469-8676.12476Claude E. Stipe Anthropologists Versus Missionaries, (Feb 2018): 11–21.https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429502569-3Natalie Ingraham Queering pornography through qualitative methods, International Journal of Multiple Research Approaches 7, no.22 (Dec 2014): 218–226.https://doi.org/10.5172/mra.2013.7.2.218Susan Trencher The literary project and representations of anthropology, Anthropological Theory 2, no.22 (Jun 2002): 211–231.https://doi.org/10.1177/1469962002002002631John W. Bennett Walks on the dark side: “Sick societies,” Interpersonal violence, and anthropology's love affair with the folk society, Reviews in Anthropology 24, no.33 (Jul 2010): 145–158.https://doi.org/10.1080/00988157.1995.9978123Marc L. Miller, Jerome Kirk Marine environmental ethics, Ocean & Coastal Management 17, no.3-43-4 (Jan 1992): 237–251.https://doi.org/10.1016/0964-5691(92)90012-ADorothy K. Billings Expressive style and culture: Individualism and group orientation contrasted, Language in Society 16, no.44 (Dec 2008): 475–497.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500000336Erika Bourguignon Sex Bias, Ethnocentrism, and Myth Building in Anthropology: The Case of Universal Male Dominance, Central Issues in Anthropology 5, no.11 (Aug 1983): 59–79.https://doi.org/10.1525/cia.1983.5.1.59Bob Scholte Critical Anthropology since its Reinvention, (Jan 1981): 148–184.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16632-9_6Bob Scholte Critical Anthropology Since It's Reinvention: On the Convergence Between the Concept of Paradigm, the Rationality of Debate and Critical Anthropology, Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly 3, no.1-21-2 (Jan 2009): 4–17.https://doi.org/10.1525/ahu.1978.3.1-2.4John J. Honigmann Histories of anthropology, Reviews in Anthropology 3, no.55 (Jul 2010): 495–500.https://doi.org/10.1080/00988157.1976.9977265 John J. Honigmann , Mina Davis Caulfield , Simeon W. Chilungu , Raymond Eches , Paul Wald , Anna-Britta Hellbom , Charles Keil , Hilda Kuper , L. L. Langness , Jacques Maquet , Dennison Nash , Pertti J. Pelto , Gretel H. Pelto , Gopala Sarana , Charles L. Siegel , Elvi Whittaker , and Rolf Wirsing The Personal Approach in Cultural Anthropological Research [and Comments and Reply], Current Anthropology 17, no.22 (Oct 2015): 243–261.https://doi.org/10.1086/201712PERTTI J. PELTO, GRETEL H. PELTO intra-cultural diversity: some theoretical issues 1, American Ethnologist 2, no.11 (Oct 2009): 1–18.https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1975.2.1.02a00010ARTHUR E. HIPPLER the North Alaska Eskimos: a culture and personality perspective, American Ethnologist 1, no.33 (Oct 2009): 449–469.https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1974.1.3.02a00040 Dennison Nash , Ronald Wintrob , H. Russell Bernard , Lodewijk Brunt , David G. Epstein , Morris Freilich , Jack A. Frisch , M. Jamil Hanifi , Dwight B. Heath , Frances Henry , Robert K. McKnight , Harris W. Mobley , Michel Panoff , Harriet R. Reynolds , Murray L. Wax , Rosalie H. Wax , and Daniel D. Whitney The Emergence of Self-Consciousness in Ethnography [and Comments and Reply], Current Anthropology 13, no.55 (Oct 2015): 527–542.https://doi.org/10.1086/201287B. N. Colby Cultural Patterns in Narrative, Science 151, no.37123712 (Feb 1966): 793–798.https://doi.org/10.1126/science.151.3712.793