Publisher's Synopsis
Sickness and death are unavoidable facts of life. However the likelihood of becoming ill or being disabled, and the experience and circumstances of dying, are not haphazard. Social relations play a major role in shaping health status, illness experience, responses to the sick and definitions of care.
Health Matters presents key contemporary perspectives and empirical evidence in the sociology of health, focusing on inequalities in health and illness, health care and prevention. Contributors explore such topics as ethnicity and health, perspectives on the body, the study of health and emotions, death and dying, postmodernism and health, psychiatric disability and community-based care, health and the discourse of weight control, the health consumer's perspective, health status in developing economies, health care and the popular media, AIDS and gender, medical practice and medical authority, and inequalities in health care in late modern societies.
The collection offers contributions from leading scholars from the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, including Robin Bunton, Valerie A Clifford, Nick Fox, Allan Kellehear, Deborah Lupton, Sarah Nettleton, Stephanie D Short, Catherine Waldby and Simon J Williams. It is invaluable reading for students and researchers interested in the sociology of health.
