Sociology Week 12
Demedicalization
"Sick" behavior is normalized again. Studied closely by symbolic interactionists in relation to healthcare
The National Healthcare Disparities Report: Racial inequalities
1) Black Americans, American Indians, and Alaskan Natives received inferior care than Caucasian Americans for about 40 percent of measures. 2) Asian ethnicities received inferior care for about 20 percent of measures. 3) Among whites, Hispanic whites received 60 percent inferior care of measures compared to non-Hispanic whites (Agency for Health Research and Quality 2010). When considering access to care, the figures were comparable.
5 stages of the process of death according to Kubler-Ross
1) Denial 2) Anger 3) Bargaining 4) Depression 5) Acceptance
Factors contributing to obesity (Huffman)
1) Improvements in technology and reduced family size have led to a reduction of work to be done in household production. 2) Unhealthy market goods, including processed foods, sweetened drinks, and sweet and salty snacks are replacing home-produced goods. 3) Leisure activities are growing more sedentary, for example, computer games, web surfing, and television viewing. 4) More workers are shifting from active work (agriculture and manufacturing) to service industries. 5) Increased access to passive transportation has led to more driving and less walking.
Three themes to guide international aging policy as determined at the Second World Assembly on Aging ing Madrid:
1) Publicly acknowledging the global challenges caused by, and the global opportunities created by, a rising global population; 2) empowering the elderly 3) linking international policies on aging to international policies on development
What is the approximate median age of the United States?
37
In the US, about half of the population is under ____, and the other half is over.
40
Just as the population of the United States is aging, the same is true of the global population. From 1950 to approximately 2010, the global population of individuals age sixty-five and older increased by a range of
5-7%
Subgroup of older adult population: The young-old
65-74
Subgroup of older adult population: The middle-old
75-84
Subgroup of older adult population: The old-old
85+
Gerontology
A field of science that seeks to understand the process of aging and the challenges encountered as seniors grow older.
Cohort
A group of people who share a statistical or demographic trait. People belonging to the same age cohort were born in the same time frame.
Legitamation
A physician must certify that the illness is genuine.
Grief
A psychological, emotional, and social response to the feelings of loss that accompanies death or a similar event.
Hospice
A type of healthcare that treats terminally ill people when "cure-oriented treatments" are no longer an option - Indication of our society's changing view on health
Sidewalk ramps and Braille signs are examples of _______________.
Accommodations required by the ADA, forms of accessibility for people with disabilities
An older woman retires and completely changes her life. She is no longer raising children or working. However, she joins the YWCA to swim every day. She serves on the Friends of the Library board. She is part of a neighborhood group that plays Bunco on Saturday nights. Her situation most closely illustrates the ______ theory.
Activity
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act counteracts which theory?
Age stratification
Secondary aging
Aging that occurs due to controllable factors such as lack of physical exercise and poor diet
Symbolic interactionist perspective on aging: Selective optimization with compensation theory (Baltes and Baltes)
Based their theory on the idea that successful personal development throughout the life course and subsequent mastery of the challenges associated with everyday life are based on the components of selection, optimization, and compensation. Though this happens at all stages in the life course, in the field of gerontology, researchers focus attention on balancing the losses associated with aging with the gains stemming from the same. Here, aging is a process and not an outcome, and the goals (compensation) are specific to the individual.
Primary aging
Biological factors such as molecular and cellular changes
Which of the following statements is not true?
Blacks have lower cancer rates than whites
1. America's baby boomer generation has contributed to all of the following except: A) Social Security's vulnerability B) Improved medical technology C) Medicaid being in danger of going bankrupt D) Rising Medicare budgets
C
Personality disorders
Cause people to behave in ways that are seen as abnormal to society but seem normal to them.
Private insurance: Direct purchase insurance
Coverage that an individual buys directly from a private company.
Filial piety
Deference and respect to one's parents and ancestors in all things -- highly valued and defining in Asian cultures
The removal of homosexuality from the DSM is an example of ____________.
Demedicalization
Impairment
Describes physical limitation
An older man retires from his job, stops golfing, and cancels his newspaper subscription. After his wife dies, he lives alone, loses touch with his children, and stops seeing old friends. His situation most closely illustrates the _______ theory.
Disengagement
The U.S. government, typically classifies people aged sixty-five years old as ________, at which point citizens are eligible for federal benefits such as Social Security and Medicare.
Elderly
Who wrote the book On Death and Dying, outlining the five stages of grief?
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Autism Spectrum Disorders
Encompasses a group of developmental brain disorders that are characterized by "deficits in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication, and engagement in repetitive behaviors or interests"
Each phase of life has challenges that come with the potential for fear. ________ in his view of socialization, broke the typical life span into eight phases. Each phase presents a particular challenge that must be overcome. In the final stage, old age, the challenge is to embrace integrity over despair.
Erik H. Erikson
Symbolic interactionist perspective on aging: Subculture of aging theory (Rose)
Focuses on the shared community created by the elderly when they are excluded (due to age), voluntarily or involuntarily, from participating in other groups.
According to ________, the sick role exemption is temporary and relative to the severity of the illness. The exemption also requires that a physician must certify that the illness is genuine.
Functionalists
Category #1 of US healthcare - Public healthcare
Government-funded
Symbolic interactionist perspective on healthcare
Health and illness are both socially constructed.
Private insurance: Employment based insurance
Health plan coverage that is provided in whole or in part by an employer or union; it can cover just the employee, or the employee and his or her family.
Core nations are also known as __________________
High-income nations
High-income countries have ________ less affluent nations.
Higher rates on depression
Today in the United States the poverty rate of the elderly is ______.
Increasing
What is the primary driver of modernization theory?
Industrialization
Conflict theory perspective on healthcare
Issues with healthcare system rooted in capitalist society. While conflict theorists are accurate in pointing out certain inequalities in the healthcare system, they do not give enough credit to medical advances that would not have been made without an economic structure to support and reward researchers: a structure dependent on profitability.
In most countries, elderly women ______ than elderly men.
Live a few years longer
Major topics for ________ include the doctor/patient relationship as well as the structure and socioeconomics of healthcare.
Medical sociologists
Are men or women more likely to remarry after their spouse has died (in old age)?
Men are more likely
Which assertion about aging in men would be made by a sociologist following the functionalist perspective?
Men who remain active after retirement maintain supportive community roles
_______________ families were on decline after WWII, but they are on the rise again.
Multigenerational
Functionalist perspective on aging: Activity theory (Cummings and Henry)
Notion that elderly people need to find replacement roles for those they've lost - Activity levels and social involvement are key to this process
Many deaths in high-income nations are linked to __________________
Obesity
Anxiety disorders include
Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and both social and specific phobias.
ADHD
One of the most common childhood disorders, and it is marked by difficulty paying attention, difficulty controlling behavior, and hyperactivity. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), ADHD responds positively to stimulant drugs like Ritalin, which helps people stay focused.
In Erik Erikson's developmental stages of life, with which challenge must older people struggle?
Overcoming despair to achieve integrity
Supercentarians
People living to 110 years or more.
Centurions
People living to be 100 years old (1,000 times more common than supercentarians)
Underinsured
People who pay at least 10 percent of their income on healthcare costs not covered by insurance or, for low-income adults, those whose medical expenses or deductibles are at least 5 percent of their income
According to the World Health Organization, what was the most frequent cause of death for children under five in low-income countries?
Pneumonia and diarrheal diseases
Category of #2 of US healthcare - Private healthcare
Privately-funded
Medicare
Provides health services to people over sixty-five years old as well as people who meet other standards for disabilities. One of two main publicly-funded healthcare systems
Age Discrimination in Employment Act
Provides protection against a broad range of age discrimination and specifically addressed termination of employment due to age, age specific layoffs, advertised positions specifying age limits or preferences, and denial of healthcare benefits to those over sixty-five years old
Medicaid
Provides services to people with very low incomes who meet other eligibility requirements. The other of two main publicly-funded healthcare systems
Disability
Refers to a reduction in one's ability to perform everyday tasks. The World Health Organization makes a distinction between the various terms used to describe handicaps that's important to the sociological perspective. Refers to the social limitation
Social gerontology
Refers to a specialized field of gerontology that examines the social (and sociological) aspects of aging.
Senescence
Refers to the aging process, including biological, emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual changes.
Medicalization of deviance
Refers to the process that changes "bad" behavior into "sick" behavior. Studied closely by symbolic interactionists in relation to healthcare
Individual mandate of Obamacare
Requires everyone to have insurance coverage by 2014 or pay a penalty. A series of provisions, including significant subsidies, are intended to address the discrepancies in income that are currently contributing to high rates of uninsurance and underinsurance.
What are the two rights and two obligations for someone in the Sick Role?
Rights: 1) Exempt from normal societal rules 2) Not responsible for their condition Obligations: 1) Trying to get well 2) Cooperating with medical professional
Universal healthcare
Simply a system that guarantees healthcare coverage for everyone. Germany, Singapore, and Canada all have
Great Britain's healthcare system is an example of ______________
Socialized medicine
The high unemployment rate among the disabled may be a result of ____________.
Stigmatization
Symbolic interactionist perspective on aging
Stress that the changes associated with old age, in and of themselves, have no inherent meaning. Nothing in the nature of aging creates any particular, defined set of attitudes. Rather, attitudes toward the elderly are rooted in society.
Conflict theorist perspective on aging: Age stratification theory (Riley, Johnson, Foner)
Suggest that members of society might be stratified by age, just as they are stratified by race, class, and gender. Because age serves as a basis of social control, different age groups will have varying access to social resources such as political and economic power.
Conflict theorist perspective on aging: Modernization theory (Cowgill and Holmes)
Suggests that the primary cause of the elderly losing power and influence in society are the parallel forces of industrialization and modernization.
Functionalist perspective on aging: Disengagement theory (Cummings and Henry)
Suggests that withdrawing from society and social relationships is a natural part of growing old. - It is natural to withdraw from individuals and society - This allows a greater freedom from the pressure to conform - Experienced differently by men than women
Conflict theorist perspective on aging: Exchange theory (Dowd)
Suggests we experience an increased dependence as we age and must increasingly submit to the will of others because we have fewer ways of compelling others to submit to us.
Stigmatization of illness (Goffman)
Suggests we might view illness as a stigma that can push others to view the ill in an undesirable manner.
Which program is an example of socialized medicine?
The United States' Veterans Health Administration
What group created the Millennium Development Goals?
The World Health Organization
Sick Role (Parsons)
The best way to understand illness sociologically is to view it as a form of deviance that disturbs the social function of the society. The general idea is that the individual who has fallen ill is not only physically sick, but now adheres to the specifically patterned social role of being sick.
Commodification
The changing of something not generally thought of as a commodity into something that can be bought and sold in a marketplace. Studied closely by conflict theorists in how it relates to the healthcare system
Baby boomers
The cohort born between 1946 and 1964 and now reaching their 60s. First group of children and teenagers with their own spending power and therefore their own marketing power. Don't want to grow old the way their grandparents did.
The 3 subheadings of the sociological understanding of health/healthcare as defined by Conrad and Barker
The cultural meaning of illness, the social construction of the illness experience, and the social construction of medical knowledge.
Functionalist perspective on aging: Continuity theory
The elderly make specific choices to maintain consistency in internal (personality structure, beliefs) and external structures (relationships), remaining active and involved throughout their elder years.
Conflict theorist perspective on aging
The elderly struggle with other groups—for example, younger society members—to retain a certain share of resources. At some point, this competition may become conflict.
Socialized medicine system
The government owns and runs the system. It employs the doctors, nurses, and other staff, and it owns and runs the hospitals
Symbolic interactionist perspective on aging: Gerotransendence (Tornstam)
The idea that as people age, they transcend the limited views of life they held in earlier times.
Morbidity
The incidence of disease.
The "graying of the United States" refers to ________.
The increasing percentage of the population over 65
Dependency ratio
The number of nonproductive citizens (young, disabled, or elderly) to productive working citizens
Mood disorders
The second most common mental disorders in the United States are
Which of the following is not part of the rights and responsibilities of a sick person under the functionalist perspective?
The sick person can take as long as they want to get better
The Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) is an example of ________________
The social construction of health
Social epidemiology
The study of the causes and distribution of diseases. It can reveal how social problems are connected to the health of different populations.
Thanatology
The systematic study of death and dying.
Medical sociology
The systematic study of how humans manage issues of health and illness, disease and disorders, and healthcare for both the sick and the healthy.
For individual people of a certain culture, the life course is ________.
The typical sequence of events in their lives
Physician-assisted suicide
The voluntary or physician-assisted use of lethal medication provided by a medical doctor to end one's life.
Contested illnesses
Those that are questioned or questionable by some medical professionals.
The treatment received by those defined as mentally ill or disabled
Varies greatly from country to country