SOCY200 Final Exam

"Race"

A social construction based on external physical characteristics (such as skin colour)

Feminist Theory

A theoretical approach that views patriarchal structures in society, including in the family, the workplace, and other social institutions, as the cause of lack of gender equality and, consequently, of numerous social problems

Intersectionality

A theoretical understanding that individuals and groups of people cannot be defined and understood by only one characteristic of their identity (such as gender, race, or income status), but that various identities are dynamically entwine

Cumulative Advantage Theory

A theory that points to the importance of early life experience of advantage (generally, of socio-economic advantage)

Population Pyramid

A type of graph portraying a population by age and gender, with the younger ages at the bottom and, conventionally, males on the left hand and females on the right

Commodification

A view of health and the provision of health care as a commodity to which cost-benefit analyses can be applied, as espoused by many health administrators and by those in the for-profit health services sector

Neo-Materialist Approach

A view of inequality and health that considers the importance of adequate material resources but then acknowledges the importance of the relative distribution of material and social goods within a society as a critical factor in subsequent health outcomes

Resilience

Ability to respond to challenges (such as loss of loved one or a serious accident or diagnosis) in ways that are helpful to ones well being

Stress

Adverse physiological and/or psychological manifestations that result from demands in the individual's environment (natural, work, family, interpersonal, financial, etc) that are greater than one usually experiences or is able to cope with over an extended period of time

E-waste

All of the waste that results from the rapid obsolescent of electronic equipment such as computers, cell phones, and associated products

Materialist Approach

An approach to the social determinants of health that focuses on how health is impacted by the extent to which people can access such materials things as adequate and nutritious food and good housing

Symbolic Interactionist/Interpretive/Social Constructionist Theor

An approach to understanding society that focuses on meaning-making and discourses of social life

Phenomenological

Analytical and descriptive, focusing on direct personal experience and consciousness

Morbidity

Being or feeling sick to the point of being unable to do and accomplish all that one normally would on a daily or weekly basis

BBC Chain

Biography, Body, and self-Conception: an approach to understanding how people cope with chronic illness affecting the body by modifying or "rewriting" their personal biographies and their conceptions of self

Microaggressions

Casual and seemingly minor slurs, slights, and interpersonal assumptions directed towards radicalized people

Life Course Transitions

Changes in status over a lifetime (such as beginning and ending different levels and types of schooling, getting married or divorced, being widowed, and so on

Climate Change

Changes in temperature and weather patterns resulting from the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (Consequences include rising sea levels, flooding, thawing of the tundra, and other extreme events)

Ethnicity

Characteristics of a group of people because of shared cultural background (including such factors as religion, family patterns, and language

Social Inclusion

Characteristics of communities (such as civic engagement, voter turnout, and the representation of people of diverse backgrounds in positions of power in local governments and community organizations) that allow people of different backgrounds and incomes to feel part of and to participate in the larger community

Pathologized

Conceptualized as problematic and/or needing medical treatment

Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCPs)

Cosmetic and over-the-counter medicines that can have a negative impact on the health of consumers and that are harmful to the environment in their production and/or disposal

Diseases of Civilization

Diseases that result from lifestyle behaviours and social determinants of health rather than from the lack of clean water, ample food, and the like. They tend to occur later in life

Pathway Effects

Early experiences of equity or inequity that set a person on a course towards better or poorer health

Greenhouse Gases (GHGs)

Gases emitted on earth (mostly due to the burning of fossil fuels and the methane resulting from intensive 'factory' farming of animals) that absorb and reflect radiation, trapping heat in the atmosphere to cause global warming

Secondary Health Care

Health care directed towards disease treatment in hospital and community via various (usually Western-style) medical practitioners

Tertiary Care

Health care that occurs in a teaching hospital attached to a university, with a side emphasis on health promotion

Twentieth-Century Disease

Hypersensitivity to toxic chemicals in the environment (also known as 'Total Allergy Syndrome' and 'Environmental Illness')

Psychosomatic

Illness and diseases cased by psychological, mental, or emotional conditions

Upstream Model

Interventions that occur prior to disease occurrence, intended to prevent illness

Downstream Model

Interventions to cure the illness that occur after disease has started

Infant Mortality Rates

Measurements of the number of deaths of infants (usually infants of less than on year) in a given year as a function of the total number in the cohort, usually presented as deaths per 1000 live births

Uncertainty

Not knowing what the outcome of a diagnosis will b

Neo-liberalism

Political ideology that focuses on the primacy of the market and free enterprise in economic development and on social and political values that give priority to individual freedom rather than group rights

Risk Society

Postmodern society characterized by ubiquitous risks (many of which are created in the process of manufacturing our supposed quality) ranging from the cars we drive tot he medicines we take and various risky but pleasurable behaviorus

Social Support

Practical help, sympathetic understanding, and/or integration into social life offered to an individual

Illness Candidate

Someone in remission from a life threatening condition

Patient-in-Waiting

Someone living with the statistically or genetically predicted expectation of disease

Survivor

Someone who has not succumbed to a deadly disease or accident and has been given a qualified or tentative "clean bill of health"

Female Circumcision

Surgical procedures (performed without anaesthetic by folk practitioners) such as circumcision, where the hood of the clitoris is cut; extension, where the clitoris and all or part of the labia minora are cut out; and infibulation, which includes cutting the clitoris, labia minora, and at least part of the labia major and suturing the two sides of the vulva, leaving only a minuscule opening

Secondary Gains

The "additional" benefits of feigning sickness

Stigma

The "othering" or blaming of a person or group as a result of a particular characteristic (such as a mental illness or ethnicity)

Cumulative Effects

The accumulation of advantage or disadvantage over a lifetime and how this affects the subsequent probability of health or illness as the person ages

Health in all Policies (HiAP)

The assertion that all social policies have consequences for the health of a population

Essentialized

The assumption made that there is an essential or basic biologically driven gender, race, sexuality, and so on (this notion ignores the powerful effects of the social on these categories)

Life Expectancy

The average age to which people born in a given year in a particular country or region of a country can expect to live

Sickness

The behaviours engaged in by the person who feels ill, such as staying in bed or going to the doctor

Absolute Homelessness

The condition of those who have no home and spend their nights either in homeless shelters or on the streets

Sex-Mortality Differential

The difference between male and female mortality rates expressed as a percentage, proportion, or fraction of the population

Global Ecosystem

The ecosphere, where environmental policies and actions in one region or country can affect aspects of the environment in other parts of the world

Primary Health Care

The essential and basic medical care that people and societies receive or should receive, including necessary drug provision, immunization, maternal and child care, disease control, local epidemiological research, and prevention efforts through improved education, sanitation, and nutrition

Illness

The experience of feeling not well

Prevalence

The extent to which a disease (diagnoses or deaths) occurs in a population at a particular time interval

Epidemiology

The field of study that focuses on patterns of disease and disease outbreak

Fundamental Cause

The first or fundamental cause of illness

Disease mongering

The idea that corporations such as pharmaceutical companies sometimes market a new disease after they have developed a new and relevant treatment

Doctrine of specific etiology

The idea that disease is a result of a specific pathogen or organ malfunction

Pharmeceuticalization

The increasing emphasis and reliance on drugs within the medical profession, and within society, to address issues of health and illness

Latency Effects

The long-term health impacts on individuals of early developmental characteristics (such as premature birth or being underweight or overweight at birth)

Precautionary Principle

The need for caution in regard to the introduction and acceptance of new technologies; "first, do no harm"

Illness Iceberg

The notion that (just as most of an iceberg is under water and unseen) much of illness, individually or within society as a whole, is undetected or not acknowledged

Birth Rate

The number of babies born in a given place over a given period of time (expressed as a function of total population)

Mortality Rate

The number of people who die in a given year as a function of the Toal population of a designated region, usually calculated as the number of deaths per 1000 people

Life Course Approach

The perspective on the social determinants of health that focus on the additives or cumulative effects of inequality or equity on the life chances and health of individuals

Social Capital

The power and well (economic, relational, emotional, and spiritual) gained by individuals as members of social networks

Independent Variable

The presumed causes of a change that must precede the changes observed in a study of human social behaviour

Racialization

The process whereby social distinctions are constructed by and about groups of people on the basis of skin colour and other perceived differences

Incidence

The rate of number of new cases of disease (either diagnoses or deaths) in a population in a given period of time

Social Cohesion

The relational 'glue' of interactions and shared activities that bind, integrate, and foster mutual interdependent of people into social life

Social Determinant of Health

The social conditions of inequality based on such factors as income, gender, age, education, housing, and neighbourhood that lead to differences in health outcomes

Remission Society

The social situation caused by the increase in people who are alive after a serious diagnosis, such as cancer, yet are continually on the lookout for the disease to return

Medicalization

The tendency for more and more of people lives to be encompassed by medical definitions of reality

Healthy Immigrant Effect

The tendency immigrants upon arrival in the receiving country and for some period of time afterwards to be healthier than non-immigrants of the same ages

Psychoneuroimmunology

The theory in modern biological science that focuses on the body's immune response to psychological states

Aspirational Health

The use of medicine to change one's identity and improve or enhance the self

Post-Structuralism

Theoretical stance emphasizing contingency and the shifting meanings and values of words, concepts, and identities, which rejects the validity of binary thinking and analysis (Eg. Male or female, well or ill, sane or insane)

Provisionally Accommodated

Those who live in a car, 'couch suffers' who live with their friends or family, and those in long-term institutions

Home Health-Care Work

Work in the home, most often done by women, that involves providing healthy conditions, nursing the sick, teaching about health, and mediating with those in the medical car system on behalf of family members with health problems

Occupational Stress

Work-related stress that can lead to a number of heath problems (caused by such factors; unreasonable deadlines, interpersonal conflicts, lack of feedback, unclear job requirements, and lack of influence)

Conflict Theory

a foundational sociological theory based on Marxian belief that the social classes are in fundamental conflict with one another (the social world is understood in terms of opposing/conflictual forces

"Environmental Illness"

a painful and sickening sensitivity to the environment (also called Twentieth Century Disease)

anti-racist theory

a theoretical approach, that views radicalization and racism as a cause of much social inequality

Biomedicalization

the intensification of medicalization over the past 20-30 years through such technoscientific processes as; computer programming, genomization, molecular biology, developments in transplant medicine, and new, expensive diagnostic technology

Dependent variable

the presumed effect of other, independent variables that must precede the dependent variables in a study of human behaviour

Discourses

ways of convincing and talking about issues, such as medicine, so that reality is defined in particular terms by the power of language

Kyoto Protocol

A 1997 agreement among most countries (using 1990 emission as a baseline) to cute greenhouse gas emissions in order to control climate change.

Sense of Coherence

A belief that the world makes sense and that the individual knows how to achieve desired goals and cope with life's vicissitudes because of the confidence that, in the long run, things will work out well

Sick Role

A concept from structural functionalism that holds that sickness is a social role characterized by two rights and two duties

Structural Functionalism

A foundational sociological theory that views the social world as a system of interlocking parts working together to fulfill functions geared tot he sustainability of the social order

Diarrheal Disease

A leading cause of infant death in the developing world; caused by polluted water, poor hygiene, and inadequate situation

Disease

A medical diagnosis pertaining to ill health

Minority Status

A numerical under-representation of an identifiably different group within a population

Political Economy Perspective

A perspective on the world development that considers the place of nations in respect to their economic and political condition, and that examines how national and international politics and economies feed of one another

Positivism

A philosophy of science that holds valid such values as objectivity, observation, replication, experimental design, and numerical analysis. It has often been used in concert with structural-functional theory

Racism

A process of evaluating and acting prejudicially and negatively towards people of a different social group and skin colour

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

A psychiatric term referring to anxiety, as well to psychological and physical suffering, that results from the experience of trauma

Social Readjustment Rating Scale

A scale that measures the amount of social change an individual has undergone in a given period of time (the results are said to predict the likelihood of subsequent illness)

Core Country, Periphery Country, Semi-Periphery Countries

A schema that differentiates nation-states on the basis of their stages of economic development and governance stability

Privatization

A shift from the public sector to the private sector in the provision of health services, often with the assumption that the individual rather than the state must pay for these services

Food Security

A situation, either chronic or acute, in which people do not have access to enough safe, nutritious, and culturally acceptable food