Differences between Medical Sociology and Social Medicine
i. Medical sociology engages in research work with different disciplinary contexts, while social medicine operates mainly within the context of bio-medical scientists.
ii. The academic background and expertise in these two areas vary because, their objectives are not identical.
iii. Their theoretical perspectives in terms of research work in the two fields are not the same. This is because the practitioners in the two fields have different academic background.
iv. Whereas social medicine is practised in the departments of community health and social epidemiologists by formally trained physicians, medical sociology, on the other hand is undertaken by sociologists who embark on research work within the department of sociology in universities.
v. Social medicine helps to describe problems, analyze their nature and suggest or prescribe solutions to them; medical sociology however, is pre-occupied with finding insight into health problems as well as making contributions to theoretical formulations.
1.3. Concept of Health and Ill-health
This is the thought or imagination of the people over the state of wellness or the condition of sickness. It can be described as a broad abstract idea or a guiding general principle that determines how a person behaves and perceive health and ill-health.
According to the World Health Organization, health is “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. Being healthy also means being physically fit, having good social relationships with friends and family, being able to function or do things, and having a sense of well-being.
Disease is an objective term referring to diagnosable abnormalities in organs, body systems or physiology which can occur with or without subjective feelings of being unwell or social recognition of that state.
Illness is a feeling, an experience of un-wellness which is entirely personal, interior to the person or the patient. It is a subjective term referring to an individual’s experience of mental and physical sensations or states, and may not necessarily indicate the presence of disease.
Sickness encompasses both disease and illness
Social Determinants of Health refer to social practices and conditions (such as lifestyles, living and work situations), class position (income, education, and occupation), stressful circumstances, poverty, and economic (e.g., unemployment, business recessions), political (e.g., policies, government benefits), and religious factors that affect the health of individuals, groups, and communities, either positively or negatively.
Social and Cultural Implications of Ill-health
Social factors refer to actions engaged on by individuals in the society and given meaning by others. Social factors with implications in the etiology of illness are:
Stress contributing to illnesses like high BP, Heart dx, ulcers, cancer, mental disorders, reduced immunity and central nervous system malfunctions
Unhealthy life styles such as lack of physical body exercise, smoking, drug abuse, excessive intake of refined sugars and fat
Obligations such as excessive fasting, female genital mutilation
Cultural Belief and Practices of a people has great influence on their health status. To some extent, the cultural context defined what conditions are recognised, the causes to be attributed to them, and which person has legitimate authority to access and define such conditions. Thus, the health status of any given society is closely related to the cultural patterns inherent in the area.
The influence of culture on ill-health is more obvious in chronic diseases (e.g. mental disorders, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, Hypertension, diabetes) than in acute clinical conditions.
Cultural beliefs and ideologies about the cause and course of diseases influence the ways in which different disease conditions are perceived and subsequent actions to be taken. In traditional African societies, Nigeria for instances, there is the belief that factors other than those put forward scientifically are responsible for the causation of diseases and ill health. They believe in two (2) major causations of illness - Natural and supernatural:
The natural causes could be accidents, bad food, and headache from long exposure to sun, scabies from dirt, bad blood. On the other side, the supernatural causes are attributed to God, Ancestral spirits, Evil spirits, Witches and wizards (witchcraft) and Sorcery