Medical sociology

The phenomenon of transnational health care has grown rapidly over recent years and this book provides a comprehensive landscape of diverse research communities' attempts to capture its implications for existing bodies of knowledge in selected aspects of medicine, medical ethics, health policy and management, and tourism studies.

Fusing the disciplines of health care, spiritual care, and social services, this book examines the relationship between chronic illness and spirituality.

Informal folk narrative genres such as gossip, advice, rumor, and urban legends provide a unique lens through which to discern popular formations of gender conflict and AIDS beliefs.

Offers a perceptive critique of the universalized model of psychiatry and its apparent exportation from the West to the developing world.

The Psy complex governs us all by inscribing, diagnosing and interfering in our lives.

Shaw addresses the 'ethical turn' in contemporary sociological thinking, by exploring the contribution of sociology and the social sciences to bioethical debates about morality and tissue exchange practices.

South Africa has the world's largest number of people living with HIV.

This volume examines concepts of disability and wellness in Native American communities, prominently featuring the life's work of Dr.

Human embryos and foetuses are highly public and contested figures.

Using an approach that combines transnational and comparative social policy analysis with international relations, this book assesses various global social policy actors and compares their ideas and prescriptions about national health care systems.

Empirical studies of life science research and biotechnologies in Asia show how assemblages of life articulate bioethics governance with global moralities and reveal why the global harmonization of bioethical standards is contrived.

What is 'addiction'?

Some two decades will shortly have passed since the WTO's Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement came into force in 1995.

Health professionals have shown a growing interest in the therapeutic value of 'hope' in recent years.

This book extends the critical scope of the previous volume, De-Medicalizing Misery, into a wider social and political context, developing the critique of the psychiatrization of Western society.

The volume focuses on the relationship between migration, health and illness in a global context from c.

This book analyses the development and use of mathematical models in public health research and policy.

An authoritative, state-of-the-art collection that brings together key experts to provide an overview of the field.

This book presents an atheistic case against the legalization of assisted suicide.

Katie Wright explores how human wellbeing is constructed and how it 'travels' across spatial boundaries.

This book examines British and American women's narratives of cosmetic surgery, exploring what those narratives say about the contemporary status of cosmetic surgery and 'local' ideas about its legitimate and illegitimate uses.

Population ageing is among the most important developments of our time.

Epidemics know no borders and are often characterized by a high level of uncertainty, causing major challenges in risk governance.

There is something unsettling, but also powerful, in the encounter with individual and collective experiences of human suffering.

A fascinating account of the phenomenon known as the Black Death, this volume offers a wealth of documentary material focused on the initial outbreak of the plague that ravaged the world in the 14th century.

Examines a range of current innovative health technologies, exploring how far they change the boundaries between the body, health, technology relationship, and assessing the contribution a critical social science can make towards our understanding of this shift.

This book explores the complex relationship between public health research and policy, employing tobacco control and health inequalities in the UK as contrasting case studies.

Breast Cancer: Society Shapes an Epidemic provides an innovative look at the social and political contexts of breast cancer and examines how this illness has become a social problem.

Narratives and Jewish Bioethics searches for answers to the critical question of what roles ancient narratives play in creating modern norms by Jewish bioethicists utilizing the Jewish textual tradition.

This book critically compares conflicting perspectives and overlapping themes within the study of disability and illness across recent decades.

Despite its safety and efficacy, emergency contraception (EC) continues to spark political controversy worldwide.

All behaviours, indeed all forms of agency, are viewed as emotionally-driven.

This book examines HIV/AIDS vulnerabilities, impacts and responses in the socioeconomic and cultural context of Sub-Saharan Africa.

This book studies the sociology of health and medicine across three different countries, the USA, UK and Australia, examining the nature of disciplines and their specialties and posing sociological questions about the formation of intellectual fields and their social relations.

Rather than physiological health only, complementary and alternative medicines aim at the production of wellbeing.

This historical study looks at how reformers have used urban planning and architecture to improve the health of urban residents of the United States.

Focussing on China's stem cell research, this book investigates how, over the last decade, Chinese scientists, ethicists and policy-makers have developed a cosmopolitan sensibility in comprehending and responding to ethical and regulatory concerns.

Despite society's current preoccupation with interrelated issues such as obesity, increasingly sedentary lifestyles and children's health, there has until now been little published research that directly addresses the place and meaning of physical activity in young people's lives.

Despite society's current preoccupation with interrelated issues such as obesity, increasingly sedentary lifestyles and children's health, there has until now been little published research that directly addresses the place and meaning of physical activity in young people's lives.

Community development, planning and partnerships have become important terms in health promotion but, up until now, debate around these concepts have been discussed more in planning science than in public health literature.

Community development, planning and partnerships have become important terms in health promotion but, up until now, debate around these concepts have been discussed more in planning science than in public health literature.

The Politics of Narcotic Drugs brings together leading experts on the drugs trade to provide an accessible yet detailed analysis of the multiple challenges that the contemporary trade in narcotic drugs and its prohibition pose, from the local to the international community.

The Politics of Narcotic Drugs brings together leading experts on the drugs trade to provide an accessible yet detailed analysis of the multiple challenges that the contemporary trade in narcotic drugs and its prohibition pose, from the local to the international community.

This book challenges the evidence-based practice movement to re-think its assumptions.

This book challenges the evidence-based practice movement to re-think its assumptions.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, key public health issues and challenges have taken centre stage.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, key public health issues and challenges have taken centre stage.

Recent rapid advances in the biosciences have led to considerable debate about the social, ethical, and legal implications of research and its applications.

Recent rapid advances in the biosciences have led to considerable debate about the social, ethical, and legal implications of research and its applications.

The question of communication and understanding between different generations is emerging as a key issue for the twenty-first century.