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Recognizing medicalization and demedicalization: discourses, practices, and identities
1University of California, Davis, USA. dhalfmann@ucdavis.edu
Health (London, England : 1997)
|May 5, 2011
Summary
This study introduces a new framework for understanding medicalization, analyzing its multiple dimensions and levels. It highlights how this nuanced approach clarifies complex medicalization and demedicalization processes, using abortion history as a case study.
Area of Science:
- Sociology of Health and Illness
- Medical Sociology
- Social Problems
Background:
- Existing scholarship on medicalization often overlooks its multifaceted nature, including discourses, practices, and identities.
- Analysis of medicalization typically occurs at limited levels (macro, meso, micro), leading to incomplete understanding.
- The conceptualization of medicalization as a binary state rather than a continuous process hinders the study of demedicalization.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose a novel typology for analyzing the multiple dimensions and levels of medicalization.
- To demonstrate the utility of this typology in understanding complex social problems.
- To re-examine historical episodes of medicalization and demedicalization, specifically in American abortion history.
Main Methods:
- Development of a new conceptual typology for medicalization.
- Application of the typology to analyze two historical episodes in American abortion.
- Comparative analysis of previous interpretations with the insights provided by the new typology.
Main Results:
- The proposed typology reveals previously overlooked dimensions and levels of medicalization in the analyzed episodes.
- The framework clarifies simultaneous processes of medicalization and demedicalization.
- The typology offers a more robust method for resolving scholarly disagreements regarding medicalization and demedicalization.
Conclusions:
- A multidimensional and multi-level approach is crucial for a comprehensive understanding of medicalization.
- The developed typology enhances the analysis of social problems and their medicalization trajectories.
- This framework provides a valuable tool for studying both medicalization and demedicalization more effectively.
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