Vocabulary

Hi guys,

Keep an eye on this part of the blog. I'll be adding important terms and ideas to this throughout the semester. Because it will be continuously updated, it will not appear as a new post at the top of the page, you will have to scroll down to view it.

Biomedical model: (5 assumptions)
1) The mind and the body can be treated separately. *We seek biological explanations for mind abnormalities (depression)

2) The body can be repaired like a machine. *This is a very impersonal approach to the healing process. This does not address the psychological or emotional effects that the disease or injury my illicit.

3) The merits of technological interventions are sometimes overplayed. *The idea that to improve healthcare, we need more technology. This is imbedded in the capitalist consumer attitude that lavish and more expensive procedures and advances are more beneficial.

4) Biomedicine is reductionist in that explanations of disease focus on biological changes to the relative neglect of social and psychological factors. *We tend to focus on the physical presence of the secular disease and deny the social factors that allow that disease to thrive.

5) Germ theory…assumes that every disease is caused by a specific, identifiable agent (disease) *This does not look at diseases not caused by a specific agent. Think of heart disease and it’s relation to stress and diet. (obesity).

Social Constructionism: Knowledge and history are based on a socially created present. The views that we generally accept as truth are skewed by the value margins that our culturally contextual society puts on it.

Discourse: Socially constructed meaning through symbolic communication.

Epistemology: the study of knowledge and justified belief.

Radical Constructionists: don’t suppose the existence of an external reality. We have created a discourse for understanding ourselves not through self-legitimizing truth but by the means through which we may describe ourselves. The techniques that we use and the terminology to describe are socially created.

Realism: presume the existence of an external reality, but argue that there are various competing accounts of that reality. There are innate truths but the process by which we use to describe it creates a cultural socket to which we affix present meaning.

Ideology: an organized system of ideas and beliefs. Ideology circulates as the natural order of things. Ideologies serve the interests of specific social groups at the expense of others.

Ethnocentrism: the belief that one's culture’s way of doing something is the best way.

Whig History: looks at the historical benefits to self-legitimize current action. This trys to establish medicine as a "natural progression."

Hegemony: A prevalent cultural dynamic that seems natural but is actually a social construction

Stratification: A social separation (hierarchy) based on class, gender, race, SES, etc

Social Institutions: Those groups surrounding an individual which illicit action to facilitate the self-propagating interests of an institution. These groups are embeded in and formed as a result of social structure. These can be either formal (school) or informal (family) which governs the

Normative Behavior : The latent rules set forth by dominant institutions that governs the ways in which an individual fulfills their social role.

Culture: A way of life for an entire society. This includes norms of behavior, systems of belief, socialization, dress and food.

Social Epidemiology: The prevalence of morbidity and mortality rates amongst different social groups. It is also a study of the social factors that contribute to differences in health among groups.

Morbidity: the rate of sickness
Mortality: the rate of death

Reformist: Interested in the individual (micro-level) and their interaction with their environment. This can be factors such as pollution, lifestyle, income and nutrition.

Materialist: This is a look at outside (macro-level) influences that shape society such as class relations.