Option: Health and Disability

What Option: Health and Disability covers

Option: Health and Disability is examined in Component 3 Section B, on the theme of power — one option of four. It covers defining health and illness as social constructs, the medical and social models of disability, official statistics, patterns and trends in health, health and social class, health and gender, health and ethnicity, health and age, artefact and self-selection explanations, cultural and material explanations, access to and provision of health care in the UK, the biomedical model, medicalisation and health professionals, functionalist and Marxist approaches to health and interactionist, feminist and postmodernist approaches to health.

The 13 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• Defining health and illness as social constructsIllness behaviour, clinical iceberg and condition whose classification has changed.Open →
• The medical and social models of disabilityDisabling barrier, three kinds of barrier identified by social model writers and biopsychosocial model of disability.Open →
• Official statistics, patterns and trends in healthInfant mortality rate, social gradient in health and standardised mortality ratio.Open →
• Health and social classBlack Report, psychosocial explanation of class differences in health and townsend deprivation index.Open →
• Health and genderGender paradox in health and feminist critique of the medicalisation of childbirth.Open →
• Health and ethnicityGenetic explanation of ethnic differences in health, cultural explanation of ethnic differences in health and material explanation of ethnic differences in health.Open →
• Health and ageAgeism in health care, compression of morbidity thesis and life course approach to health.Open →
• Artefact and self-selection explanationsHealth-related social mobility, downward drift and numerator-denominator problem.Open →
• Cultural and material explanationsMain criticism of the cultural explanation, neo-material explanation of health inequality and health-damaging environment.Open →
• Access to and provision of health care in the UKInverse care law, postcode lottery in health care and founding principles of the National Health Service.Open →
• The biomedical model, medicalisation and health professionalsMain assumptions of the biomedical model, social model of health and consumerist model of the patient.Open →
• Functionalist and Marxist approaches to healthParsons on the sick role as regulated deviance, against Navarro and Doyal on health care serving capital, with the criticisms each attracts.Open →
• Interactionist, feminist and postmodernist approaches to healthMain feminist argument about medicine and feminist argument about the medicalisation of women's lives.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take Option: Health and Disability further

The same content, four other ways.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   How has the World Health Organization defined health since 1948?

   Model answer

   The World Health Organization defines health as complete physical, mental and social wellbeing. Absence of disease alone is treated as insufficient.

2. 2

   Give one criticism of the World Health Organization definition of health.

   Model answer

   Critics argue that complete wellbeing is an ideal almost nobody attains. A definition that classifies most people as unhealthy has limited practical use.

3. 3

   Distinguish a negative from a positive definition of health.

   Model answer

   A negative definition treats health as the absence of disease or symptoms. A positive definition treats health as fitness, capacity and wellbeing.

4. 4

   What did Blaxter find about lay definitions of health?

   Model answer

   Blaxter (1990, UK) surveyed around 9,000 adults in Britain about health and lifestyle. Respondents described health as absence of disease, as functional fitness and as positive wellbeing.

5. 5

   Distinguish disease from illness.

   Model answer

   Disease is a diagnosed biological abnormality. Illness is the subjective experience of feeling unwell, which can occur with no diagnosis at all.

6. 6

   Define illness behaviour.

   Model answer

   Illness behaviour is what a person does after noticing a symptom. Ignoring it, asking a pharmacist and consulting a doctor are all illness behaviours.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

Option: Health and Disability revision questions

What does Option: Health and Disability cover in Eduqas A-Level Sociology?

13 subtopics: defining health and illness as social constructs, the medical and social models of disability, official statistics, patterns and trends in health, health and social class, health and gender, health and ethnicity, health and age, artefact and self-selection explanations, cultural and material explanations, access to and provision of health care in the uk, the biomedical model, medicalisation and health professionals, functionalist and marxist approaches to health and interactionist, feminist and postmodernist approaches to health. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is Option: Health and Disability organised?

By the Eduqas A200QS specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.