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Second Opinion. An Introduction to Health Sociology (3rd edn)
John Germov (ed)
ISBN: 0-195517-41-5 2005 548 pages Oxford University Press
Timothy Marjoribanks
The publication of the third edition of Second Opinion, edited by John Germov from the University of Newcastle, is to be warmly welcomed by all teachers and students in the field of health sociology. The publication continues and improves upon the high quality of previous editions, while also providing important teaching and learning innovations. As revealed through the book, while we live in a health-obsessed age, ‘we hear very little about the social origins of disease or our social responsibility to address the living and working conditions that impact on our health' (2005:1). Through its chapters, contributed by an impressive range of researchers from sociology and other disciplines, this book shows the pressing need for those of us researching and teaching in health to further our contributions to changing this situation, while also providing a wonderful basis through which to inspire our students to do likewise.
The book contains 21 chapters organised into 3 major parts, while also including significant introductory and concluding sections. The 3 chapters constituting the Introduction provide an overview of health sociology in the context of other models of health and illness, and theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of health. Part One then engages with key parameters of the social production and distribution of health and illness, engaging with relations of class, gender, indigenous health, and the social appetite, defined as the social patterns of food production, distribution and consumption. Part Two focuses on the social construction of health and illness, drawing out key sociological issues around ethnicity and multiculturalism, deviance, the body, health promotion, the human genome project, and ageing and dying. Part Three analyses the social organisation of health care, with specific chapters on the politics and power of health care, medical dominance, nursing, alternative medicine, allied health and community health services. Finally, the concluding part of the book draws out issues of citizenship and rights in health care, and returns to the central theme of the relationship between health and the sociological imagination.
One of the challenges for any edited book is to create a theme or themes that can bring together the varied contributions that constitute the book. In this case, the foundations for such a theme are provided through the development of a ‘sociological imagination template' (2005:22). Arguing for the need to ground sociological analyses in a number of related dimension including historical, cultural, critical and structural factors, many of the contributors either directly or implicitly return to these themes in their chapters. As a result, while the contributions critically explore many of the wide-ranging theoretical and empirical approaches and findings within sociology to engage with health, there is a common analytic thread that will be invaluable to student and teacher alike.
Given the dominance in contemporary health of biomedicine as practice, and of biomedical forms of knowledge, one of the key achievements of the text is to reveal the significant contribution that sociology can and does make to our understanding of, and engagement with, health and illness. For example, various chapters reveal the ways in which mobilisation of sociological frameworks of analysis can assist with an understanding of a range of health factors from the individual health care provider-patient relationship, through to the societal influence of forces ranging from racism through to political contests around dominance in health care. In particular, these analyses bring directly to the attention of students the need to move any analysis of health away from assumptions about naturalness or common sense, to explore the complex social foundations of health. The chapters also reveal the ways in which sociology can not only help us to understand many of the injustices and inequalities of contemporary health experiences and structures, but they also provide space for analysing and conceptualising movements towards the creation of alternative more socially just health arrangements.
As a teaching text, the book has many fine features to recommend it. The wide ranging coverage of health issues and the uniformly high quality of contributions, as well as the overall structure of the book, make it highly suitable for a subject on health sociology, either as a stand-alone text or in conjunction with a reading pack. The chapters also include strong selections of recommendations for further readings, discussion questions, a related website and key concepts, all of which can be used by both teachers and students. Particularly useful in seeking to engage the student with the material are sociological reflection exercises, where students are encouraged to relate their reading to everyday health contexts, many of which will be familiar. In my experience of teaching health sociology, it is often at this moment where students connect the theoretical debates with grounded everyday examples that the subject comes alive. The text provides further welcome resources by including a bibliography of key resources and a short, critical essay on tips for planning, writing and referencing health sociology essays, beginning with the welcome exhortation not to commence research with a Google search.
In the highly competitive world of textbooks in health sociology, both in Australia and internationally, lecturers and students in the field are very fortunate to have this text at their disposal. I recommend it highly, either as a required text or as an additional resource, for both introductory and advanced level subjects in health sociology and related fields.
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