Revisiting Medicalization: A Critique of the Assumptions of What Counts As Medical Knowledge

Correia, Tiago

doi:10.3389/fsoc.2017.00014

Cited by 41 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…A full rehearsal of these debates (Busfield ,b, Williams et al . ), including the not insignificant matter of what counts as medicalisation in the first place, if not medicalisation s in the plural (Correia ) is beyond the scope of this paper. Suffice it to say, for present purposes, that the position we are taking here follows others who argue that each of these concepts may vary independently of one another in complex, dynamic ways (see Abraham , Bell and Figert , Williams et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

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Medicalisation, pharmaceuticalisation, or both? Exploring the medical management of sleeplessness as insomnia

Coveney

Williams

Gabe

2018

Sociology Health & Illness

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In this paper we examine the medical management of sleeplessness as ‘insomnia’, through the eyes of general practitioners (GPs) and sleep experts in Britain. Three key themes were evident in the data. These related to (i) institutional issues around advocacy and training in sleep medicine (ii) conceptual issues in the diagnosis of insomnia (iii) and how these played out in terms of treatment issues. As a result, the bulk of medical management occurred at the primary rather than secondary care level. These issues are then reflected on in terms of the light they shed on relations between the medicalisation and the pharmaceuticalisation of sleeplessness as insomnia. Sleeplessness, we suggest, is only partially and problematically medicalised as insomnia to date at the conceptual, institutional and interactional levels owing to the foregoing factors. Much of this moreover, on closer inspection, is arguably better captured through recourse to pharmaceuticalisation, including countervailing moves and downward regulatory pressures which suggest a possible degree of depharmaceuticalisation in future, at least as far prescription hypnotics are concerned. Pharmaceuticalisation therefore, we conclude, has distinct analytical value in directing our attention, in this particular case, to important dynamics occurring within if not beyond the medicalisation of sleeplessness as insomnia.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“… See for example Hislop and Arber (), Williams (), Cheung et al . () for previous discussion of these concepts and relations, and Correia () for a recent rethink of medicalisations in the plural. …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Medicalisation, pharmaceuticalisation, or both? Exploring the medical management of sleeplessness as insomnia

Coveney

Williams

Gabe

2018

Sociology Health & Illness

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“…More recently, Correira () has wondered if these changes have radically changed the fundamental theoretical prerogatives of the concept of medicalisation (expansion of medical jurisdiction, medical dominance, and medical control of deviant behaviour). In the debate, there are also critical voices about the prevalent negative connotation attributed to the concept of medicalisation.…”

Section: Medicalisation: Genesis and Development Of A Medical Categorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this article, it is not possible to deepen this debate. For a theoretical–epistemological reflection on the medicalisation process, see Rafalovich () and Correia ().…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Current trends in medicalisation: Universalising ADHD diagnosis and treatments

Lusardi

2019

Sociology Compass

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There is a wide sociological debate that documents how inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsive behaviours from a certain point forward cease to be disturbing behaviours and become childhood psychiatric disorders—named attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders (ADHD)—to be responded to with specific treatments since these behaviours are supposed to have a negative or pervasive impact on social and personal functioning and quality of life. Looking back over the stages of this debate, the article will focus on what, in recent years, are the two main directions of the expansion of the domain of medicalisation: on the one hand, discussing how the ADHD category has changed by moving from being typically a childhood problem to a disorder that can affect adults and, on the other, how it tends to globalise conquering new markets outside the United States, Canada, and Australia. The article concludes commenting on how the processes of lifelong expansion and worldwide diffusion is universalising the medical category, overcoming the disciplinary and geographical boundaries in which ADHD was created and developed.

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“…The uses of language of risk in medicine "scientific discursivity" is used to justify the idea that the hospital is the safe place to delivery any birth. According to Foucault (1988), discursive fields are always linked to institutions and power strategies that reproduce social order and mechanisms to control population and bodies (Dictionary of social sciences, 2002; Correia, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Language of Risk, Public Policies, and Childbirth in the Municipality of São Paulo: A Reading of Data From the Live Birth System 2010–2016

2018

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The main factor for the hospitalization of childbirth was the expansion of power-knowledge in eighteenth century medicine. In Brazil, throughout the twentieth century, public policies for women's health focused care on biological and reproductive dimensions, and birth control technologies. Technoscience advances in producing knowledge and interventions regarding women's bodies led to a medicalization of labor and birth, consolidating the hospital as an ideal space. This article aims to examine numbers of surgical-cesarean births in the municipality of São Paulo, and to discuss how racial, cultural, social, and economic inequalities influence forms of birth. The statistics have been problematized in their connections with the language of risk, actors, and materialities involved in producing surgical births: public policies for pregnancy, labor, and post-natal care, hospitals. Research was carried out in the repository of public data on births in the municipality of São Paulo, in the period between 2010 and 2016, focusing on types of birth, in relation to place of birth, and women's race/color and levels of education. The analysis indicated that the majority of births are surgical-cesarean, at a number five times higher than that recommended by the World Health Organization; the number is even higher at private hospitals and among women who declared themselves as white or asian. Higher levels of education are also linked to this elevated number of births. Vaginal birth numbers were greater in public hospitals for women who declared themselves as black, mixed race, and native Brazilian. The language of risk guides public policies, delivery practices, and childbirth in Brazil. The lack of investment in birth centers in the country encourages hospitalization. Health professionals attending births have a central role in maintaining the culture of surgical delivery. Surgical-cesarean birth as a woman's choice is an argument based on childbirth myths, on incorrect information about physiological and psychological processes, and lack of support from health professionals and families faced with the desire for vaginal birth. The complexity of the situation demands recognition that these realities are built on several factors, interconnected in the day-to-day of health services.

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Revisiting Medicalization: A Critique of the Assumptions of What Counts As Medical Knowledge

Cited by 41 publications

References 50 publications

Medicalisation, pharmaceuticalisation, or both? Exploring the medical management of sleeplessness as insomnia

Medicalisation, pharmaceuticalisation, or both? Exploring the medical management of sleeplessness as insomnia

Current trends in medicalisation: Universalising ADHD diagnosis and treatments

The Language of Risk, Public Policies, and Childbirth in the Municipality of São Paulo: A Reading of Data From the Live Birth System 2010–2016

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