Health by Mildred Blaxter (US edition, hardcover), Bishan

Ships from and sold by Pick A Book Asia SG
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13: 9780745648453
Condition: Brandnew
Binding: hardcover
Pages: 176
Dimensons: 228 x 148 x 20 | 397 (gram)

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The second edition of Mildred Blaxter's successful and highly respected book offers a comprehensive and engaging introduction to the key debates surrounding the concept of health today. It discusses how health is defined, constructed, experienced and acted out in contemporary developed societies, drawing on a range of empirical data from the USA, Britain, France, and many other countries. The new edition has been thoroughly revised and updated, with new material added on health and identity, the "new genetics", the sociology of the body, and the formation of health capital throughout the life course. The topic is the concept of health, rather than the more usual emphasis on illness and health-care systems. Special emphasis is given to the lay perspective to show how people themselves think about and experience health. Blaxter guides students through all the relevant conceptual models of the relationship of health to the structure of society, from inequality in health to the ideas of the risk society, the ‘socio-biological translation’ and the contribution of health to social capital. The book concludes with a comprehensively revised and thought-provoking discussion of the impact of new technology, the boundaries between life and death, modern commodification of health, technological transformations of the body and theories of evolutionary biology. Health is an invaluable textbook for students of medicine and other health professions as well as those studying sociology, health sciences and health promotion.Table of Content Introduction. 1. How is health defined? Health as the absence of illness. Disease as deviance. Health as balance or homeostasis. Health as function. Health as state or status. The biomedical model. Contemporary biomedicine. The social model. Health, disease, illness and sickness. How is health measured? Health capital. 2. How is health constructed? Health as social construction. Constructions of history. Constructions of culture. Constructivism and feminism. Illness, labelling and stigma. Constructions of mental illness. Constructions of disability. The critique of relativism. Medicalisation and the constructions of medical practice. 3. How is health embodied and experienced? Embodiment. Lay definitions of health. Social representations of health. Self-rated health. Concepts of the causes of health and illness. Health histories and subjective health capital. Illness narratives. Limitations of narrative. The search for meaning. Health as moral discourse and metaphor. Responsibility for health. 4. How is health enacted? The rise and fall of 'illness behaviour'. Person to patient: help-seeking behaviour. The patient role. Control and concordance. Enacted behaviour. Behaving 'healthily'. Str...