Changing national health values of Russian youth aged 13-17

The article is devoted to the study of the attitudes of contemporary Russian youth to a healthy lifestyle, healthcare in general, and physical culture and sports. As a result of a qualitative sociological study, the main trends and perspectives in the perception of a healthy lifestyle, physical culture, and sports in Russian regions are discovered and defined. The study specifies the motivational aspects of young Russians’ attitudes to a healthy lifestyle, healthcare, physical culture, and sports. The specific features of the development of regional physical culture and sports in Russia, as well as the characteristics of the perception of physical culture and sports by various groups of Russian youth in the regions of the country, are identified. The attitudes to social stereotypes concerning a healthy lifestyle and sports in the minds of Russian citizens are discovered. The practical significance of the study results: the conclusions of the project can be used for the development of youth policy, as well as the development of new programs for the optimization of young people’s lifestyle and the development of physical culture and sports in Russia. The study results can be utilized for the innovation of courses on the sociology of health and disease.

Health Power Resources Theory: A Relational Approach to the Study of Health Inequalities

Link and Phelan’s pioneering 1995 theory of fundamental causes urged health scholars to consider the macro-level contexts that “put people at risk of risks.” Allied research on the political economy of health has since aptly demonstrated how institutions contextualize risk factors for health. Yet scant research has fully capitalized on either fundamental cause or political economy of health’s allusion to power relations as a determinant of persistent inequalities in population health. I address this oversight by advancing a theory of health power resources that contends that power relations distribute and translate the meaning (i.e., necessity, value, and utility) of socioeconomic and health-relevant resources. This occurs through stratification, commodification, discrimination, and devitalization. Resurrecting historical sociological emphases on power relations provides an avenue through which scholars can more fully understand the patterning of population health and better connect the sociology of health and illness to the central tenets of the discipline.

Sociological Perspectives on Disability

This chapter outlines the roots of disability scholarship in sociology and how the sociology of disability subfield positions disability as an axis of inequality. The first part of the chapter argues that sociology is uniquely positioned to understand how disability as a social category is made through institutional structures, larger patterns of exclusion and inclusion, and emphasis on power and inequality. Yet it is often excluded in measurements and analyses in the discipline. The chapter then turns to the origins of disability scholarship in sociology, its influence on the interdisciplinary field of disability studies, and the emergent subfield of sociology of disability within the discipline. The remaining parts of the chapter survey how disability has been studied across subfields such as sociology of health and illness, sociology of body/embodiment, and feminist sociological scholarship. In discussing disability across these subfields, divergences between mainstream sociology and the sociology of disability are highlighted in an effort to map their departures and pinpoint why disability as a category or axis of inequality is persistently underresearched in sociology. The chapter concludes with thoughts about where new scholarship on disability might be going in sociology.

Sociology, Knowledge and Engagement: A Case for a Muckraking Sociology of Health and Healthcare in the Time of COVID

We adopt the definition of muckraking advanced by Marx in his Muckraking Sociology. At its core is a commitment to social criticism via the exposure and challenging of those rhetorics that provide cover for dominant interests. Our focus is on the field of health and health care, with particular reference to the largely hidden agendas of successive Health Ministers post-2010. We present two substantial case studies. The first concerns the sustained attack on the National Health Service (NHS) with a view to replacing it with a more market-oriented system. This begins with the run-up to the Health and Social Care Act of 2012 and goes on to feature governmental action taken as a consequence of this Act, often under the public radar. The second hones in on the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. We argue that this reflects an ideological commitment to undermine and marketise the NHS and its public health arm. Following on from these case studies, we venture a re-appraisal of the sociological project in light of the growing need for evidence-based social criticism to examine, expose and if necessary counter a political tendency to fabricate policy-based evidence in line with the prevailing ideology.

Disrupting social marketing through a practice-oriented approach

Purpose This paper aims to explore four disruptions that practice theory makes to traditional social marketing approaches to school physical activity (PA) intervention. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on existing literature from sustainable consumption, sociology of health and illness and the authors’ experiences working with primary schools in the UK to plan and execute social marketing approaches to PA, targeting interconnected social practices from which PA emerges or fails to emerge. The paper explores a practice-oriented theoretical framing, engaging with calls from interdisciplinary areas for PA interventions to shape the PA emerging from a school’s everyday routines, rather than promote PA participation at an individual level. Findings The paper argues first that a practice perspective would focus on situation research rather than audience research, with practices rather than people as the focus. Second, the purpose of practice-oriented social marketing would be to achieve transitions in practices rather than behaviour change. Third, the planning and management approach of practice-oriented social marketing would account for unintended consequences and complex interconnections between practices. Finally, an evolved evaluation approach to practice-oriented social marketing would take a longer term approach to understand how cultural transitions are emerging. Originality/value This paper contributes to an important stream of critical social marketing scholarship that seeks to advance social marketing away from its individualist routes. It sets an agenda for further research that considers the ontological and practical possibilities for practice informed approach to social marketing.

Cancer as a disease of civilization in the sociological concepts of suffering, emotion and affect

The authors undertake a thorough analysis of the sociological concepts of suffering, emotion, and affect in the context of cancer as a disease of civilization. To that end, firstly, they explore the social logic of care and the gift in order to embark on the n. of the social relation between a designation of cancer as a disease of civilization and the development of modern societies. The authors examine the place and perception of cancer-affected persons and groups in societies of today. Subsequently, they analyze the sociological concepts of suffering, emotion, and affect while exploring a wide range of n.s related, among others, to the sociology of health, including in reference to particular situations of persons affected by cancer. In addition, the authors examine the significance of informal caregivers and the popularity of end-life care institutions for cancer patients. The authors also analyze emotions felt by cancer-affected persons as well as the role of groups and internet forums which gather cancer-affected persons, their closest friends and families

The Allied Health Professions

Drawing on case studies from optometrists, physiotherapists, pedorthists and allied health assistants, this book offers an innovative comparison of allied health occupations in Australia and Britain. Adopting a theory of the sociology of health professions, it explores how the allied health professions can achieve their professional goals.