Sociology Of Health Research Articles

Formation of new health care practices: what sociology [does not] see

The article was prepared for the 50th anniversary of the journal “Sociological Studies”. An array of articles (N = 29) on the topic of health care norms and practices published in the journal from 2010 to 2023 was analyzed. To validate the research presented in the publication and the results of qualitative content analysis, data from eight public opinion surveys were analyzed by the ZIRCON research group and the Higher School of Economics, conducted as part of various projects in 2010– 2023, including those with authors participation (five of them represent the population of the Russian Federation, three relate to individual regions and cities of Russia). Along with the identified thematic gaps in the field of modern sociology of health, it has been ascertained that the studies complement each other and make it possible to build a logic for the presentation of the health care topics covering all its main links.

Your favourite authors favourite authors: a bibliometric social network analysis of hip-hop education literature

Abstract Hip-hop culture can be found globally, and hip-hop educators can be found in these same spaces. Therefore, hip-hop has been in classrooms and has been increasingly popular in a multitude of disciplines, including but not limited to health sciences, sociology, and education. Given the vast reach of hip-hop education research, a logical next step is to characterize the impact of hip-hop education scholarship using bibliometrics. We examined hip-hop education through the lens of bibliometrics and social network analysis (SNA). A pool of 371 studies was identified for citation analysis. The findings of this study contribute to the literature by characterizing the development of hip-hop education research. Specifically, we contribute to the field by: (1) identifying key scholarly contributions in hip-hop education and the linkages among them, (2) tracing the evolution of the field over time, (3) analyzing the impact of hip-hop on the field of education, and (4) exploring the cross-disciplinary role of hip-hop education research. Implications are provided for future research and praxis to support learners in urban spaces.

Toward a Sociology of Plasma Products.

Over the past 20 years, plasma has become a medical treatment characterized as "liquid gold" to signal its lifesaving potential. Through a manufacturing process termed fractionation, plasma, collected through blood donation, is turned into Plasma Derived Medical Products (PDMPs). The World Health Organization (WHO) has underlined the importance of PDMPs for global health care, including a number of PDMPs on the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines. The process of collecting plasma from a donor, manufacturing plasma derived treatments, and distributing those treatments globally requires the coordination of multiple social actors operating in different social, political and economic contexts, but has received little attention in scholarly literature on public policy or the social sciences. This paper will introduce a set of analytic questions and concepts that can direct a sociology of plasma products. We build on the behavioral turn in the policy sciences to identify relevant policy questions emerging from this field and offer the analytic tools necessary to investigate how different social actors in this space make meaning of plasma. To do this, we will draw on key concepts in the sociology of health and illness.

Physicians and Iatrogenism from the Philosophy of Medicine to the Sociology of Health

In pre-modern times, health services provided by traditional healers such as clergymen, healers, and herbalists were conducted by professionalss specialized in modern medicine such as physicians and auxiliary health personnel. Although modern Western medicine has developed in many areas, it has been criticized severely. The most important of these criticisms is the unquestionable structure of modern medicine and the methods and techniques used by physicians in the treatment processes in connection with this structure. These criticisms are termed with the concept of iatrogenesis, and criticisms against both modern medicine and physicians are becoming sharper. In this study, the forms of iatrogenesis produced by modern medicine in general and by physicians in particular will be discussed from the perspective of medical philosophy and health sociology. In addition, the relationship between physicians and iatrogenism will be evaluated in the context of recently discussed issues such as patient-physician relations, commercialization of health services, construction of the patient as a customer, pharmaceutical industry and guided scientific studies, excessive use of drugs and medical devices, medicalization of life, gaining popularity of traditional treatment methods.

Model Selection Posterior Predictive Model Checking via Limited‐Information Indices for Bayesian Diagnostic Classification Modeling

AbstractRecently, Bayesian diagnostic classification modeling has been becoming popular in health psychology, education, and sociology. Typically information criteria are used for model selection when researchers want to choose the best model among alternative models. In Bayesian estimation, posterior predictive checking is a flexible Bayesian model evaluation tool, which allows researchers to detect Q‐matrix misspecification. However, model selection methods using posterior predictive checking (PPC) for Bayesian DCM are not well investigated. Thus, this research aims to propose a novel model selection approach using posterior predictive checking with limited‐information statistics for selecting the correct Q‐matrix. A simulation study was conducted to examine the performance of the proposed method. Furthermore, an empirical example was provided to illustrate how it can be used in real scenarios.

Brilliant care: a conceptual argument for scholarship of the extraordinary

ABSTRACT Critiques of healthcare often focus on negative experiences to address gaps, issues, and problems. While important, this often obscures care that exceeds expectation – that is, brilliant care. This article centres brilliant care by considering the questions that might be asked to surface it, and what might happen when brilliant care is centred. Specifically, a conceptual understanding of brilliant care is extended within health sociology. In doing so, the article draws on Mol’s research on the logic of care, Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory, and Hochschild’s notion of emotion work. Through an application of this conceptual framework to secondary data – namely, reported stories of healthcare experiences from the series ‘What’s right in health care’ – the article demonstrates how the framework surfaces and illuminates aspects of brilliance and its emergence. The article concludes by considering the implications this has on how we make sense of healthcare and the positive, social, and relational aspects that might be surfaced in current and future practices.

Elite class self-interest, socioeconomic inequality and U.S. population health.

Class-based perspectives on the persistent social gradients in health within modern welfare states largely focus on the adverse consequences of unfettered neoliberalism and entrenched meritocratic socioeconomic selection. Namely, neoliberal-driven economic inequality has fuelled resentment and stress among lower-status groups, while these groups have become more homogeneous with regard to health behaviours and outcomes. We synthesise several sociological and historical literatures to argue that, in addition to these class-based explanations, socioeconomic inequality may contribute to persistent social gradients in health due to elite class self-interest-in particular elites' preferences for overdiagnosis, overprescription and costly high-technology medical treatments over disease prevention, and for increased tolerance for regulatory capture. We demonstrate that this self-interest provides parsimonious explanations for several contemporary trends in U.S. health inequality including (A) supply-side factors in drug-related deaths, (B) longitudinal trends in the social gradients of obesity and chronic disease mortality and (C) the immigrant health advantage. We conclude that sociological theories of elite class self-interest usefully complement theories of the psychosocial effects of neoliberalism and of meritocratic social selection while answering recent calls for research on the role advantaged groups play in generating inequalities in health, and for research that moves beyond technological determinism in health sociology.

Sociology of Health and Sports: the Experience of Eurasia

Sociology of Health and Sports: the Experience of Eurasia

Applied Social Research in the Healthcare System: New Forms and Meanings of Interdisciplinarity

This article provides a summary of the V Anniversary Forum with International Participation “Sociology of Health: New Forms of Interdisciplinary Synergy,” which took place at the end of 2023. Based on the materials of the Forum, topical issues in the field of applying social research methodologies to healthcare organization are observed. Among them are such topics as the value and strategies for applying interdisciplinary approaches, the emergence of new trends and understanding of old ones in healthcare digitalization (neural networks, new research methods, gamification, transformation of communication), focusing on certain vulnerable population groups, e.g., the senior population and their health, increasing attention to mental health issues, etc. The Forum offered new forms of interdisciplinary dialogue, connecting standard scientific sections with novel ideas such as immersive spaces. According to survey results, the event was highly appreciated by listeners, showing how well it matched their interests.

Preventing The Impact of Unequal Thought Social Media on LGBT and HIV-AIDS In Mindset of Gen Z

The present study reports the comprehensive study after pandemic era in early 2024, aims to determine an effective methodical approach in exploiting the impact of thought inequality when using social media as an effort to prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS (LGBT) infections. The preparation of this literature review uses the narrative literature review method by entering keywords into the PubMed, ProQuest, Wiley, CINAHL and databases of ScienceDirect. The results of the research show that the effective method used in utilizing social media in efforts to prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS (LGBT) infections including Network Monitoring Systems and direct intervention. The Network Monitoring System method can analyze the scientific role of health sociology in statistical data or social change trends which are used as material considerations in formulating health promotion policies. Meanwhile, direct intervention with a comprehensive educational approach in empowering individuals, communities or groups becomes a stimulant for one is the potential to oversee health problems independently. In conclusion, both produce outputs in the form of increasing awareness in the prevention and transmission of HIV/AIDS (LGBT), healthy sexual knowledge, minimizing stigma towards HIV/AIDS sufferers, getting accurate target tracing paths, education will be provided.

Sociotechnical imaginaries in academic medicine strategic planning: a document analysis

Purpose Along with other industries, healthcare is becoming increasingly digitized. Our study explores how the field of academic medicine is preparing for this digital future. Method Active strategic plans available in English were collected from faculties of medicine in Canada (n = 14), departments in medical schools (n = 17), academic health science centres (n = 23) and associated research institutes (n = 5). In total, 59 strategic plans were subjected to a practice-oriented form of document analysis, informed by the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries. Results On the one hand, digital health is discursively treated as a continuation of the academic medicine vision, with expansions of physician competencies and of research institutes contributions. These imaginaries do not necessarily disrupt the field of academic medicine as currently configured. On the other hand, there is a vision of digital health pursuing a robust sociotechnical future with transformative implications for how care is conducted, what forms of knowledge are prioritized, how patients and patienthood will be understood, and how data work will be distributed. This imaginary may destabilize existing distributions of knowledge and power. Conclusions Looking through the lens of sociotechnical imaginaries, this study illuminates strategic plans as framing desirable futures, directing attention towards specific ways of understanding problems of healthcare, and mobilizing the resources to knit together social and technical systems in ways that bring these visions to fruition. There are bound to be tensions as these sociotechnical imaginaries are translated into material realities. Many of those tensions and their attempted resolutions will have direct implications for the expectations of health professional graduates, the nature of clinical learning environments, and future relationships with patients. Sociology of digital health and science and technology studies can provide useful insights to guide leaders in academic medicine shaping these digital futures.

Employing critical realism within and beyond social studies of health: tenets, applications, possible future research and action

ABSTRACT Critical realism provides an alternative to positivism and interpretivism. It foregrounds ontology and an evaluative approach to knowledge, while promoting eclectic reasoning, transdisciplinarity, and ethical research across the quantitative/qualitative, macro/micro and other divides. Health researchers have usefully employed critical realism, though it has also been dismissed as strange, a source of self-deception and hubris. Furthermore, it has been accused of dehumanizing many people. Responding to these charges, this article makes the case for carefully employing critical realism within and beyond social studies of health. It first outlines some basic critical realist tenets before summarizing two exemplars within the sociology of health, illness and medical work. The discussion section, observing the principle of hermeticism, engages with some criticisms before offering a prolegomenon to research on the COVID-19 pandemic response. In conclusion, a ‘radical’ proposal is ventured for possible transformative action so that society is less hierarchical, more equal and salutogenic.

Lack of social support, gender and colorectal cancer screening participation across Europe: How do screening programmes mitigate the effect of social support for men and women?

This study investigates how a lack of social support differentially affects men and women's colorectal cancer (CRC) screening participation, considering different screening strategies implemented across European countries. Although health sociology has stressed gender differences in social support and its effects on health behaviours, this was overlooked by cancer screening research. Using a data set of 65,961 women and 55,602 men in 31 European countries, we analysed the effect of social support variables on CRC screening uptake. We found that living alone and lower perceived social support were associated with lower screening uptake for both men and women. These effects were, however, stronger among men. Population-based screening programmes mitigated these effects, particularly for women, but not for men living alone. In countries with opportunistic screening programmes, social support variables remained associated with screening uptake. We conclude that cancer screening interventions should pay attention to social support and its gender-differentiated effects.

Seeking help for atrial fibrillation: the role of the body in distributed decision making

We adopt Rapley's (2008) concept of distributed decision making to explore the role of the body in people's decisions to seek medical care. We conducted in-depth interviews with patients diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AF) who were taking long-term anticoagulants to prevent stroke. We interviewed seventeen patients recruited from English anticoagulant clinics using the biographic-narrative-interpretive method, and conducted thematic, structural and metaphorical analyses. This pluralistic analysis focused on how distributed decision-making was enacted through a range of socio-material, relational and embodied practices. Participants told how they experienced AF-related sensations that fluctuated in intensity and form. Some had no symptoms at all; others experienced sudden incapacitation – these experiences shaped different journeys towards seeking medical help. We draw on work by Mol (2002) to show how the body was differently observed, experienced and done across contexts as the narratives unfolded. We show that as part of a relational assemblage, involving social, material and technological actors over time, a new body-in-need-of-help was enacted and medical help sought. This body-in-need-of-help was collectively discussed, interpreted and experienced through distribution of body parts, fluids and technological representations to shape decisions.RAPLEY T., 2008. Distributed decision making: the anatomy of decisions-in-action. Sociology of Health & Illness, 30, 429–444.MOL A., 2002. The body multiple: ontology in medical practice. Duke University Press: Durham.

Maternal and Child Health Habitus in Coastal Areas

This research explores the health habits of mothers and children in coastal communities. Habitus is interpreted as habits carried out by mothers and children to improve health status. This research uses a qualitative approach. The aim of collecting qualitative data is to explore the health habits of mothers and children in coastal communities, especially in the Dompak sub-district area. Qualitative data collection used in-depth interview procedures with officials and native housewives (not immigrants) on Dompak Island. The selection of informants was based on purposive sampling procedures, this was with the aim of exploring more deeply the research questions with native female informants on Dompak Island. This research contributes to the development of cross-disciplinary science in the social sciences, especially the science of health sociology regarding the health habits of mothers and children in coastal areas. This scientific contribution is theoretically useful when the results of this research are published in the form of scientific publications. This research is planned to be published in the reputable national journal Sinta. In addition to publication output, this research is expected to be an academic contribution as a recommendation for policy makers, especially in health policy, to understand community culture in the health sector so that they can take a more appropriate approach so that the goals of health policy are accepted by the community.

Mapping disability and climate change knowledge base in Scopus using bibliometric analysis.

Climate change and disability are rarely addressed by academic scholars within the spectrum of disabilities and as a single field of study. However, the intersectionality of disability exacerbates the vulnerability of people with disabilities to climate change as climate change frameworks in the Global North and South continue excluding them. This study aims to map the research-based knowledge housed in Scopus on disability and climate change. At the same time, it provides insights into innovative (novelty) ways of thinking and proposes a futuristic research agenda. A bibliometric analysis was conducted on Scopus-indexed articles using VOSviewer to map co-occurrences of keywords and co-authorship, and a manual thematic-scoping review augmented the data analysis. The disability and climate change debate as a joint study evolved from concern among health practitioners to human rights and social inclusion. In conclusion, there is a skewness towards mental health and medical sociology lens, while other sub-groups of persons with disabilities are yet to be engaged in co-creating disability-inclusive climate change knowledge. Thematic areas emerged as gaps that future studies embed principles enshrined in the United Nations Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Active Inference and Social Actors: Towards a Neuro-Bio-Social Theory of Brains and Bodies in Their Worlds

Although research including biological concepts and variables has gained more prominence in sociology, progress assimilating the organ of experience, the brain, has been theoretically and technically challenging. Formal uptake and assimilation have thus been slow. Within psychology and neuroscience, the traditional brain, which has made brief appearances in sociological research, is a “bottom–up” processor in which sensory signals are passed up the neural hierarchy where they are eventually cognitively and emotionally processed, after which actions and responses are generated. In this paper, we introduce the Active Inference Framework (AIF), which casts the brain as a Bayesian “inference engine” that tests its “top–down” predictive models against “bottom–up” sensory error streams in its attempts to resolve uncertainty and make the world more predictable. After assembling and presenting key concepts in the AIF, we describe an integrated neuro-bio-social model that prioritizes the microsociological assertion that the scene of action is the situation, wherein brains enculturate. Through such social dynamics, enculturated brains share models of the world with one another, enabling collective realities that disclose the actions afforded in those times and places. We conclude by discussing this neuro-bio-social model within the context of exemplar sociological research areas, including the sociology of stress and health, the sociology of emotions, and cognitive cultural sociology, all areas where the brain has received some degree of recognition and incorporation. In each case, sociological insights that do not fit naturally with the traditional brain model emerge intuitively from the predictive AIF model, further underscoring the interconnections and interdependencies between these areas, while also providing a foundation for a probabilistic sociology.

Reframing the public/private debate on healthcare services: Tracking boundaries in the National Health Service.

This paper intervenes in the dichotomous debate on the 'privatisation' of the UK's National Health Service (NHS). Whilst research suggests that involving private-sector actors and principles deviates from the founding aims of the NHS to deliver equitable healthcare for all, the opposing argument to 'keep our NHS public' also limits understanding and alternative possibilities. Through focusing on maintaining overarching structures, these campaigns fail to address everyday medical practices that have long been critiqued by those allied with the sociology of health and illness. This paper draws on feminist critiques of public/private to expand the structural economic lens of mainstream political debates and explore how multiple forms of economic, social, cultural, and symbolic capital, operate in everyday healthcare practices. Through an historically-informed ethnographic exploration of routine hip replacements, I find that capital itself emerges through relations between people and things, and that public/private boundaries play an integral role in forming these relations to instil value on particular patients and forms of labour, demarcating what kind of healthcare is given to whom. I therefore suggest future action should focus on assembling healthcare relations beyond the dualism of public/private categories, to create multiple safe places and relations for all.

Sociological Probing of Swathed Cultural Health Systems in Yonibana, Tonkolili District, Northern Sierra Leone

In this sociological inquiry, the researcher explored the pursuit for health and healing in Yonibana, Tonkolili District, Northern Sierra Leone, unearthing the swathed forms of medical awareness and practices. This sociological inquiry organizes to pose novel and further questions about the sociology of health and healing. Incipiently, via published work, then via dominant material and social dialogues. The inquiry negotiates the successive intents: a. To portray the intricate health structure of care in Sierra Leone. b. To portray and scrutinize the social pattern of healthcare seeking behavior in an intricate, inequality and manifold healthcare structure. c. To examine social relations of cultural authority, shame and inequity in a manifold healthcare structure. d. To scan expansive social reflections of how both women and men in Northern Sierra Leone appreciate, steer and utilize divergent shapes of healthcare structures. This inquiry depicts that women and men in this district of Sierra Leone trek an intricate tour in search of their well-being challenged by the cultural inequalities and intricacies of district health care structures. The inquiry summarises by depicting that the folks of this district, manifest agency in their health practices, and their health seeking behaviour and actions are adjusted in an effort to facilitate their wellness. Given the gendered and patriarchal context of Sierra Leonean culture, the findings of this study are perhaps surprising that birthing women reported male midwives to be more gentle, calm, and respectful than female midwives, and that nurses who work in rural health posts are perceived to be more respectful than the nurses who work at central hospitals, thus these findings may suggest more need to explore these two themes.

A body is born: contemporary transformations in the knowledge produced between Sociology and Health

In what ways have the social phenomena understood as belonging to the sphere of "health" provoked Sociology in recent decades? This essay takes this question as a starting point for linking Sociology and Health, proposing a reflection on how knowledge can advance at the intersection between these two fields of knowledge. The article is structured in three sections: in the first, a brief reflection on the notion of "contemporary sociological problems" will be presented, indicating the questions of the Sociology of Health that can be taken as a vector for this inquiry; in the second, it examines some contributions of the Sociology of Health, especially from the late 20th century, indicating how this area has had to organize solutions and reconfigure sociological problems to deal with contemporary phenomena; and in the last section, it proposes new questions for thinking about health as a sociological problem in the contemporary political context.