Assignment: Health and Medicine Essay

Assignment: Health and Medicine Essay

Assignment Health and Medicine Essay

Mostly, health connotes mental, physical, and social wellbeing. However, in the sociological perspective, this definition does not capture the fact that health and disease could be construed socially and that if health can be defined positively then it would turn into a positive experience too.  In the sociology of health, the major focus is on the examination of the interaction between society and health (Collyer and Scambler, 2015). The objective of defining health in sociological view is to observe how social life affects mortality rate and morbidity. Often, health or lack of it is attributed to natural conditions and biological factors.  However, in sociology health entails social epidemiology, mental health, medicalization, disability, and disease.  Therefore, health entails more than just biological or medical occurrence.  Sociologists argue that spread of disease is significantly influenced by different factors such as cultural factors, individual socio-economic status, and ethnic traditions or beliefs. As such, sociology perceives, organizes, and act upon health in economic, institutional, political, and cultural context (Collyer and Scambler, 2015). Besides, health is continuously evolving and as people learn how to manage existing disease, new ones develop.

On the other hand, the medical sociology focuses on how health and illness are construed socially. This construction is shaped by numerous components of social order which are separate from biomedical occurrences. Therefore, medical sociology potentially integrates and creates sense of various depictions of illness and health including institutional structures, social epidemiology of disease and death, professional practice, social policy, personal health experience, and health economics and financing (Cockerham, (ed), 2012). However, the major concern the sociology of medicine is mostly limited to the relationship between patient and practitioner and the responsibility of the health professionals in the society.

It is, therefore, evident that in sociology being healthy is subjective and varies among cultures and is always associated with increase in technology and social patterns of race, sexual disparities, gender, and class. For instance, some societies would associate fatness with good health and indication of an individual with sufficient food. However, other cultures would regard such person as unhealthy. Besides, advancement in technology has also created new perspectives of being healthy. The technology used in a given society plays a major role in shaping the health of people in significant ways. Similarly, the social inequality in the distribution of advanced technologies in different societies also creates health disparities. For instance, in the global survey, the health in low-income nations that experience poor technological advancement are mostly characterized by short life expectancy, high children deaths before reaching their teens, and poor sanitation, hunger, unclean water supply, inadequate health staff, thus, poor health outcomes. However, in technological advanced high-income nations, there are excellent health outcomes with rate of deaths emanating from infectious diseases sharply dropped since the beginning of the 20^th century. However, the chronic diseases are still a major problem that causes many deaths, especially among the elderly. Particularly, health in the United States is mostly good based on the global standards. Many resources are allocated on an individual care compared to other high-income countries.

Other social determinants of health in many societies include age and gender and social class and race. For instance, in age and gender, young people experience rare death while women does well than men in the entire lifespan. Besides, men are naturally individualistic and aggressive making them to have high incidences of violence, accidents, and suicide. Concerning social class and race, better income and wealth advances health through better nutrition, health care, safe and stress surroundings. On the other hand, infant mortality is relatively higher among children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds compared to children from privileged families. In US, the poor face similar vulnerabilities to diseases as the ones from low-income nations.

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Sociologists have shown that access, use, practice, and education concerning health and wellbeing are enormously influenced by existing cultural customs, patterns, and beliefs that usually have little or lack of relationship with physiological death. Therefore,

sociological aspects are likely to present while considering dealing with health related issues such as cigarette smoking, eating disorders, obesity, and sexually transmitted diseases. On the other hand, disparities in health care access tend to cause social inequalities in wellbeing. In particular, the disparities in access to health are attributed to different payment systems for medical care that exist indifferent nations and cultures. As such, it is imperative to understand the values and customs that guide health reforms (Annandale, 2013).  Consequently, while planning for reforms in health system, it is important to have knowledge in health sociology to be able to get the concept of the informal and amorphous socio-cultural practices that may facilitate or impede the cross-sectional integration. Besides, away from the perspective of informal and amorphous socio-cultural practices, it is also critical to have a grasp of different socialization patterns and power structures that can be manifested.

Another area that is closely linked to health I sociology is death. Essentially, death is an irreversible state that is characterized by lack of response to stimulation, absence of breathing and movement, no show of brain activity, and no reflexes. In America, thousands of people are in a vegetative state. As such, many adults have indicated their support for allowing the terminally ill patients the right to decide whether or not to undergo assisted death. The assisted death connotes mercy killing that is characterized by euthanasia which involves helping the patients suffering from painful incurable diseases to die a painless death. It also involves active euthanasia which is authorizing a physician to help a patient die.

Regarding the theoretical perspectives, sociologists may understand the issues of health and medicine through consideration of different theoretical perspectives. First, the functionalist theoretical perspective which considers health and medicine to the bigger societal picture and focus on how every aspect of society are fundamental to the consistent health and viability of the entire society. On the other hand, the conflict perspective is concerned with the creation and reproduction of inequality. Utilization of this theory may focus on disparities within the health system such as ethnicity, race, age, and gender. The interactionist theoretical perspective on its side focuses on how individuals recognize their health and how their health impacts their association with those who are around them.

In conclusion, the understanding and crucial perception of health and medicine in sociology are vital for healthcare professionals and policy makers in healthcare because they detail the relationship and causal links of health and disease to social, societal, and behavioral aspects.

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Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.

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The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.

Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.

If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.

I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.

As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.

Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:

Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.

Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.

Important information for writing discussion questions and participation

Welcome to class

Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to

I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.

Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.

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Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.

Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.

I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!

Hi Class,

Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Important information on Writing a Discussion Question

• Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
• There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
• Include in-text citations in your response
• Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
• Follow APA-7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor

• A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
• Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
• Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
• Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
• Follow APA 7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed
• Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
• Here are some helpful links
• Student paper example
• Citing Sources
• The Writing Center is a great resource