ROLES OF THE SOCIOLOGIST IN THE INTERPRETIONOF DISEASE OCCURRENCE IN SOCIETY

Abstract

Decades  ago,  Sociology  of  disease  was  something  of  a  misnomer.  The  time  has  come  to embrace  the  sociological  discourse  on  diseases  as  focus of  medical  care.  This  is  because non-involvement  of  sociologists  in  interpreting  diseases  may  often  lead  to  undertreatment, overtreatment  or  mistreatment  of  diseases  which  which  will  be  harmful  to  individuals  in society.  This  paper  contains  an  extensive  introduction  of  the  nature  of  disease  emergence from  social  background/causation.  Many  studies  on  disease  occurrence  are  derived  from pathological,   etiological,   applied   clinical,   epidemiological,   neurological,   and   other congenial fields, yet dearth of information exist on the social interpretation of disease, even within  stream  of  sociology  of  health  and  illness.  This  paper  is  thus  an  advocacy  for sociological  interpretation  of  diseas  situations  in  society  which  is  critical  for  fuller understanding  of  the  nature  of  diseases  in  this  contemporary  society.  The  paper  has provided  some  useful  information  on  how  social  relations  indeed  influence  the  occurrence and  the  distribution  of  diseases.  It  strongly  stressed  that  disease  causation  is  not limited  to biological factors  which  has  some  limitations.  Two  main  sociological  perspectives  were employed  to  further  explain  the  arguments  on  etiology  of  disease.  Finally,  the  key  roles  of the sociologist in disease interpretation in society were outlined.