Health Care
The “iron triangle” of health care
What are access, quality, and cost?
The conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks
What are social determinants of health?
A state of physical, mental, and social well-being, not just the absence of disease or illness
What is health?
How society categorizes/ranks individuals in terms of their socioeconomic status, power, or perceived value to society
What is social stratification?
The idea that the characteristics of persons or groups are significantly influenced by biological factors and are therefore similar in all human cultures and historical periods
What is essentialism?
Absence of trust that health care providers and organizations genuinely care for patients’ interests, are honest, practice confidentiality, and have the competence to produce the best possible results
What is medical mistrust?
An individual’s position in society, usually determined by their work experience, economic access to resources, and relative social position
What is socioeconomic status?
The experience and perception of disease within the sociocultural context
What is illness?
A position containing a set of socially defined attributes and expectations that determine appropriate behavior for an individual or group based on their status in relation to other people or groups
What is a role?
Web of social relationships surrounding an individual, in particular, structural features (e.g., type and strength of each social relationship)
What is a social network?
The process by which human problems or experiences become defined and treated as medical problems with medical solutions
What is medicalization?
The processes by which various neighborhood conditions influence the well-being of residents collectively or individually
What are neighborhood effects?
Illnesses that are questioned or questionable by some medical professionals (e.g., fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome)
What are contested illnesses?
Ability to do what one wants, regardless of the will of others
What is power?
The potential of individuals to secure benefits through their social relationships and membership in social networks
What is social capital?
A framework that proposes that certain ideas about physical reality arise from collaborative consensus, instead of the pure observation of said physical reality
What is social constructionism?
An “attribute that is deeply discrediting”
What is stigma?
A measure’s ability to perform consistently
What is reliability?
Social assets (e.g., education, intellect, style of speech, style of dress, etc.) (what you know)
What is cultural capital?
People with similar traits are more likely to form social ties with each other (“birds of a feather flock together”)
What is homophily?
Societal processes that maintain social order and cohesion by regulating individual and group behavior
What is social control?
Inability to afford what others (that they’re comparing themselves to) can
What is relative deprivation?
A measure of health or disease burden that considers both quantity (length) and quality of life
What are Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs)?
Status that is inherited (defined at birth)
What is ascribed status?
Process whereby an individual’s standards, skills, motives, attitudes, and behaviors change to conform to those regarded as desirable and appropriate for his or her present and future role in any particular society
What is socialization?