Medical sociology
Medical sociology studies how social relationships, institutions, inequalities, and cultural meanings shape health, illness, and medical care.
Social determinants of health: Conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age that shape health outcomes. This framework names the social conditions medical sociology investigates.
Health disparities: Differences in health outcomes or healthcare access among population groups. Medical sociology examines how social arrangements produce and sustain these gaps.
Talcott Parsons: An American sociologist whose functionalist theory analyzed institutions, social order, and the sick role. His account made illness and medical practice central subjects for sociological theory.
Medical anthropology: The study of health, illness, and healing across cultural settings, often through ethnographic research. It overlaps with medical sociology but often foregrounds culture and comparative ethnography.
Social model of disability: A framework that locates disability in social barriers and exclusion rather than solely in bodily impairment. It demonstrates how sociological perspectives can redirect explanations from bodies to environments.
Sociology of health and illness: The study of how society shapes health, illness, healthcare, and medical knowledge. It is the broader sociological field that includes medical sociology.
Health equity: The condition in which everyone has a fair opportunity to attain their full health potential. It provides a justice-oriented standard for evaluating unequal outcomes.
Émile Durkheim: A French sociologist who studied social facts, solidarity, religion, and suicide. His methods helped establish the study of social patterns in health and mortality.
Public health: The organized effort to protect and improve population health through collective action. It applies population-level interventions, while medical sociology primarily analyzes social processes.
Structural competency: The ability to recognize and respond to social, economic, and institutional structures that shape health. It translates structural analysis into clinical awareness and practice.