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Book Review
Critical Perspectives on Health
Stephen Kermode
ISBN: 1-741033-58-6 2004 91PB pages Australia: Pearson SprintPrint
Meei-Ling Gau
National Taipei College of Nursing, Taipei, Taiwan
'Health for all' is a goal as valid today as it was when set by the World Health Assembly in 1978. Health, as defined by World Health Organization, is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, and is a fundamental human right. However, despite advances in science, medicine and public health in nearly all countries, a gap exists between the health care services available and health care needs of people. This book provides a critical overview of the social and political context of health and health care systems for beginning health care practitioners.
The book is organized into 9 chapters. Chapter 1 consists of an introduction and an overview that provide a critical sociology perspective on health. It addresses the issue of inequality and explains how a range of approaches have been developed to deal with health promotion, primary health care and the New Public Health, and notes the limitations of these approaches. Chapter 2 presents data on the Australian health system to elaborate how social, economic and political factors have fundamental effects on health. Moreover, the author indicates that the steps most likely to create the best health status are reducing the gap between the rich and the poor, and creating employment. Chapter 3 introduces the idea of illness behaviour and the place of the body in society. It emphasizes that both illness behaviour and the body are socially constructed. Chapter 4 summarizes the historical origins of hospitals, and a number of ideological, social and political themes associated with the roles of hospitals in society. Chapter 5 describes the position of doctors in health care systems, outlining several problems associated with the quality of medical services, such as medical dominance and perceptions of patients. Chapter 6 addresses the position of nursing within society and within the health care system, and discusses the issues of gender and medical dominance as well as important sources of occupational power. Chapter 7 describes the nature of technology and examines the problematic issues of the commodification of health care, its costs, its contribution to the medicalisation of life, its dubious relationship to population health and its effect on the work of nurses. Chapter 8 identifies the issues of iatrogensis, the medicalization of deviance and labeling and social control over the body. Chapter 9 presents the nature and context of health policy, and analyzes the trends in health policy related to privatization and deregulation, and how these trends impact on health care.
The book is written more for graduate level students than undergraduates as the concepts tend to be philosophical and abstract. I would suggest a more concrete and practical description, as well as additional examples, would be suitable for undergraduates. Moreover, this book lacks a conclusion to give a clear and integrating standpoint in relation to critical sociology of health care and the health care system. Suggestions for future practice would also have contributed usefully to such a conclusion.
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