New Directions In The Sociology Of Health

The sociology of medicine has come a long way from its origins in epidemiology and clinical practice. Like all specialist areas of study it has developed its own internal debates, over the years there has been a shift from a sociology in medicine to a sociology of medicine, and from a sociolgy of medicine, towards a sociology of health and illness. It is to the development of this latter perspective that this volume is addressed.

Chapter 1 Introduction: Developing the Sociology of Health Chapter 2 Socio-economic Conditions and Aspects of Health: Respiratory Symptoms in Four West Yorkshire Mining Localities Chapter 3 Opening the ‘Black Box’: Inequalities in Women’s Health Chapter 4 Distance Decay and Information Deprivation: Health Implications for People in Rural Isolation Chapter 5 ‘We’re Home Helps because we Care’: The Experience of Home Helps Caring for Elderly People Chapter 6 Hooked? Media Responses to Tranquillizer Dependence Chapter 7 Regulating our Favourite Drug Chapter 8 Say No to Drugs, but Yes to Clean Syringes? Chapter 9 Using Alternative Therapies: Marginal Medicine and Central Concerns Chapter 10 Caribbean Home Remedies and their Importance for Black Women’s Health Care in Britain Chapter 11 Health and Work in the 1990s: Towards a New Perspective Chapter 12 Where was Sociology in the Struggle to Re-establish Public Health?

Postgraduate and Professional

Geoff Payne is Assistant Director and Dean of the Faculty of Human Sciences at Polytechnic South West. He is author of Employment and Opportunity, 1987, and Mobility and Change in Modern Society, 1987, as well as articles on social mobility, social research and education. Pamela Abbott is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy at Polytechnic South West. Previous publications include Community Care for Mentally Handicapped Children’, 1987 (with Roger Sapsford); Women and Social Class, 1987 (with Roger Sapsford); An Introduction to Sociology: Feminist Perspectives, 1990 (with Claire Wallace).