View source for Medicalization

{{Short description|Categorization of human problems as medical}}
{{Medical sociology sidebar}}

'''Medicalization''' is the process by which human conditions and problems come to be defined and treated as [[medical conditions]], and thus become the subject of medical study, diagnosis, [[Preventive medicine|prevention]], or treatment. Medicalization can be driven by new evidence or hypotheses about conditions; by changing social attitudes or economic considerations; or by the development of new medications or treatments.

Medicalization is studied from a [[Medical sociology|sociologic perspective]] in terms of the role and power of [[Profession#Sociology|professionals]], patients, and corporations, and also for its implications for ordinary people whose self-identity and life decisions may depend on the prevailing concepts of health and illness. Once a condition is classified as medical, a [[medical model of disability]] tends to be used in place of a [[social model of disability|social model]]. Medicalization may also be termed '''''pathologization''''' or (pejoratively) "[[disease mongering]]". Since medicalization is the social process through which a condition becomes seen as a medical disease in need of treatment, appropriate medicalization may be viewed as a benefit to human society. The identification of a condition as a disease can lead to the treatment of certain symptoms and conditions, which will improve overall quality of life.

==History==
The concept of medicalization was devised by sociologists to explain how medical knowledge is applied to behaviors which are not self-evidently medical or biological.<ref name=White>{{cite book|last=White|first=Kevin|title=An introduction to the sociology of health and illness|year=2002|publisher=SAGE|isbn=0-7619-6400-2|pages=42|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5bHxQBNWGHMC&pg=PA42}}</ref> The term ''medicalization'' entered the sociology literature in the 1970s in the works of [[Irving Zola]], [[Peter Conrad (sociologist)|Peter Conrad]] and [[Thomas Szasz]], among others. According to [[Eric Cassell]]'s book, ''The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine'' (2004), the expansion of medical social control is being justified as a means of explaining deviance.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The nature of suffering and the goals of medicine|author=Cassell, Eric J. |author-link=Eric Cassell |date=2004|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780195156164|edition=2nd|location=New York|oclc=173843216}}</ref> These sociologists viewed medicalization as a form of social control in which medical authority expanded into domains of everyday existence, and they rejected medicalization in the name of liberation. This critique was embodied in works such as Conrad's article "The discovery of hyperkinesis: notes on medicalization of deviance", published in 1973 ([[Hyperkinetic disorder|hyperkinesis]] was the term then used to describe what we might now call [[ADHD]]).<ref>{{cite journal |author=Conrad P |author-link=Peter Conrad (sociologist) |title=The discovery of hyperkinesis: notes on the medicalization of deviant behavior |journal=Soc Probl |volume=23 |issue=1 |pages=12&ndash;21 |date=October 1975 |pmid=11662312 |doi= 10.2307/799624|jstor=799624 }}</ref>

These sociologists did not believe medicalization to be a new phenomenon, arguing that medical authorities had always been concerned with social behavior and traditionally functioned as agents of social control (Foucault, 1965; Szasz,1970; Rosen). However, these authors took the view that increasingly sophisticated technology had extended the potential reach of medicalization as a form of social control, especially in terms of "psychotechnology" (Chorover,1973).

In the 1975 book ''Limits to medicine: Medical nemesis'' (1975), [[Ivan Illich]] put forth one of the earliest uses of the term "medicalization". Illich, a philosopher, argued that the medical profession harms people through [[iatrogenesis]], a process in which illness and social problems increase due to medical intervention. Illich saw iatrogenesis occurring on three levels: the ''clinical'', involving serious [[side effects]] worse than the original condition; the ''social'', whereby the general public is made docile and reliant on the medical profession to cope with life in their society; and the ''structural'', whereby the idea of aging and dying as medical illnesses effectively "medicalized" human life and left individuals and societies less able to deal with these "natural" processes.

The concept of medicalization dovetailed with some aspects of the 1970s [[feminist]] movement. Critics such as [[Barbara Ehrenreich|Ehrenreich]] and English (1978) argued that women's bodies were being medicalized by the predominantly male medical profession. Menstruation and pregnancy had come to be seen as medical problems requiring interventions such as [[hysterectomies]].

[[Marxist]]s such as Vicente Navarro (1980) linked medicalization to an oppressive [[capitalist]] society. They argued that medicine disguised the underlying causes of disease, such as [[social inequality]] and poverty, and instead presented health as an individual issue. Others<ref>{{Cite book|title = Culture, Health and Illness|last = Helman|first = Cecil|publisher = Arnold|year = 2007|isbn = 9780340914502|location = London|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=C3BoQgAACAAJ}}</ref> examined the power and prestige of the medical profession, including the use of terminology to mystify and of professional rules to exclude or subordinate others.

Tiago Correia (2017)<ref>{{cite journal |last=Correia |first=Tiago |year=2017 |title=Revisiting Medicalization: A Critique of the Assumptions of What Counts As Medical Knowledge |journal=Front. Sociol. |volume=2 |issue=14 |article-number=14 |doi=10.3389/fsoc.2017.00014 |url=https://repositorio.iscte-iul.pt/bitstream/10071/14414/5/fsoc-02-00014.pdf |doi-access=free }}</ref> offers an alternative perspective on medicalization. He argues that medicalization needs to be detached from biomedicine to overcome much of the criticism it has faced, and to protect its value in contemporary sociological debates. Building on [[Hans-Georg Gadamer|Gadamer]]'s hermeneutical view of medicine, he focuses on medicine's common traits, regardless of empirical differences in both time and space. Medicalization and social control are viewed as distinct analytical dimensions that in practice may or may not overlap. Correia contends that the idea of "making things medical" needs to include all forms of medical knowledge in a global society, not simply those forms linked to the established (bio)medical professions. Looking at "knowledge", beyond the confines of professional boundaries, may help us understand the multiplicity of ways in which medicalization can exist in different times and societies, and allow contemporary societies to avoid such pitfalls as "demedicalization" (through a turn towards [[complementary and alternative medicine]]) on the one hand, or the over-rapid and unregulated adoption of biomedical medicine in non-western societies on the other. The challenge is to determine what medical knowledge is present, and how it is being used to medicalize behaviors and symptoms.

== Areas ==
{{Undue weight section|date=July 2021}}

=== Sexuality and gender ===
{{Main article|Medicalisation of sexuality|l1 = Medicalization of sexuality}}
Many aspects of human sexuality have been medicalized and pathologised by psychiatry, psychology and the [[pharmaceutical industry]]. This includes masturbation, homosexuality, erectile dysfunction and female sexual dysfunction. Medicalization has also been used to justify sexualisation of [[transgender]] people, [[intersex]] people and those diagnosed with [[HIV/AIDS]]. The medicalization of sexuality has resulted in increased [[social control]], [[disease mongering]], surveillance, and increased funding in some research areas of [[sexology]] and human physiology. The practice of medicalizing sexuality has been widely criticized, with one of the most common criticisms being that the [[biological reductionism]] and other tenets of medicalisation, individualism and naturalism, generally fail to take into account [[Sociocultural perspective|sociocultural]] factors contributing to [[human sexuality]].<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Štulhofer |first=Aleksandar |title=The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality |date=2015-04-20 |isbn=9781405190060 |pages=721–817 |chapter=Medicalization of sexuality |doi=10.1002/9781118896877.wbiehs297 |chapter-url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118896877.wbiehs297}}</ref><ref name=":11">{{Cite journal |last=Tiefer |first=Leonore |date=May 2010 |title=Still resisting after all these years: an update on sexuo-medicalization and on the New View Campaign to challenge the medicalization of women's sexuality |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14681991003649495 |journal=Sexual and Relationship Therapy |volume=25 |issue=2 |pages=189–196 |doi=10.1080/14681991003649495 |issn=1468-1994 |s2cid=145389996 |access-date=2023-12-12 |via=EBSCO|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

The [[HIV/AIDS pandemic]] allegedly caused from the 1980s a "profound re-medicalization of sexuality".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aggleton |first1=Peter |title=Framing the sexual subject: the politics of gender, sexuality, and power |last2=Parker |first2=Richard Bordeaux |last3=Barbosa |first3=Regina Maria |publisher=University of California Press |year=2000 |isbn=0-520-21838-8 |location=Berkeley}} p.3</ref><ref>Carole S. Vance "Anthropology Rediscovers Sexuality: A Theoretical Comment." Social Science and Medicine 33 (8) 875-884 1991</ref>{{huh|date=August 2024}}<!--- MAYBE WORD ORDER?  "CAUSED FROM THE 1980s"--->

The diagnosis of [[premenstrual dysphoric disorder]] (PMDD) has caused some controversy when [[fluoxetine]] (also known as Prozac) was being repackaged as a PMDD therapy under the trade named [[Sarafem]]. The psychologist [[Peggy Kleinplatz]] has criticized the diagnosis as the medicalization of normal human behavior.<ref name="offman2004">Offman A, Kleinplatz PJ (2004). Does PMDD Belong in the DSM? Challenging the Medicalization of Women's Bodies. ''The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality'', Vol. 13</ref> Other medicalized aspects of women's health include [[infertility]],<ref name="Social Science & Medicine 2016 pp. 39–46">{{cite journal |last1=Bell |first1=Ann V. |date=2016-05-01 |title=The margins of medicalization: Diversity and context through the case of infertility |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953616301058#bib54 |journal=Social Science & Medicine |volume=156 |pages=39–46 |doi=10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.03.005 |issn=0277-9536 |pmid=27017089 |access-date=2022-01-16|url-access=subscription }}</ref> [[breastfeeding]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Apple |first1=R. D. |date=March 1, 1994 |title=The Medicalization of Infant Feeding in the United States and New Zealand: Two Countries, One Experience |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/089033449401000125?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmed |journal=The Journal of Human Lactation |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=31–37 |doi=10.1177/089033449401000125 |pmid=7619244 |s2cid=19873049 |access-date=16 January 2022|url-access=subscription }}</ref> the childbirth process,<ref name="Shaw 2013 pp. 522–536">{{cite journal |last=Shaw |first=Jessica C. A. |year=2013 |title=The Medicalization of Birth and Midwifery as Resistance |journal=Health Care for Women International |publisher=Informa UK Limited |volume=34 |issue=6 |pages=522–536 |doi=10.1080/07399332.2012.736569 |issn=0739-9332 |pmid=23514572 |s2cid=30949127 |doi-access=free}}</ref> and [[postpartum depression]].<ref name="Godderis pp. 484–500">{{cite journal |last=Godderis |first=Rebecca |date=2011-09-01 |title=Iterative Generation of Diagnostic Categories Through Production and Practice: The Case of Postpartum Depression |journal=Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry |publisher=Springer Science and Business Media LLC |volume=35 |issue=4 |pages=484–500 |doi=10.1007/s11013-011-9232-0 |issn=0165-005X |pmid=21882061 |s2cid=21432019}}</ref>

Although it has received less attention, it is claimed that [[masculinity]] has also faced medicalization, being deemed damaging to health and requiring regulation or enhancement through drugs, technologies or therapy.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Rosenfeld |first1=Dana |title=Medicalized masculinities |last2=Faircloth |first2=Christopher A. |date=2006 |publisher=Temple University Press |isbn=1592130976 |location=Philadelphia |oclc=60603319}}</ref> Specifically, [[erectile dysfunction]] was once considered a natural part of the aging process in men, but has since been medicalized as a problem, [[late-onset hypogonadism]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Marshall |first1=Barbara L. |date=July 1, 2006 |title=The New Virility: Viagra, Male Aging and Sexual Function |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1363460706065057 |journal=Sexualities |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=345–362 |doi=10.1177/1363460706065057 |s2cid=145132541 |access-date=16 January 2022|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

According to Mike Fitzpatrick, resistance to medicalization was a common theme of the [[gay liberation]], [[anti-psychiatry]], and [[feminist movement]]s of the 1970s, but now there is "virtually no resistance to the advance of government intrusion in lifestyle if it is deemed to be justified in terms of public health."<ref name="Fitzpatrick">{{cite journal |last=Fitzpatrick |first=Mike |date=August 2004 |title=From 'nanny state' to 'therapeutic state' |journal=[[The British Journal of General Practice]] |volume=1 |issue=54(505) |pages=645 |pmc=1324868 |pmid=15517694}}</ref> Moreover, the pressure for medicalization now comes from society itself as well as from the government and medical professionals.<ref name="Fitzpatrick" />

=== Psychiatry ===
For many years, marginalized psychiatrists (such as [[Peter Breggin]], [[Paula Caplan]], [[Thomas Szasz]]) and outside critics (such as [[Stuart A. Kirk]]) have "been accusing psychiatry of engaging in the systematic medicalization of normality". More recently these concerns have come from insiders who have worked for and promoted the [[American Psychiatric Association]] (e.g., [[Robert Spitzer (psychiatrist)|Robert Spitzer]], [[Allen Frances]]).<ref name="stuarta">{{cite book |last1=Kirk |first1=S. A. |last2=Gomory |first2=T. |last3=Cohen |first3=D. |title=Mad Science: Psychiatric Coercion, Diagnosis, and Drugs |publisher=Transaction Publishers |year=2013 |page=185}}</ref>

[[Benjamin Rush]], the father of American psychiatry, claimed that Black people had black skin because they were ill with hereditary leprosy. Consequently, he considered [[vitiligo]] as a "spontaneous cure".<ref>{{citation |author=Thomas Szasz |title=The Manufacture of Madness |pages=153–170 |year=1970 |publisher=Syracuse University Press}}</ref>

According to [[Franco Basaglia]] and his followers, whose approach pointed out the role of psychiatric institutions in the control and medicalization of deviant behaviors and social problems, psychiatry is used as the provider of scientific support for social control to the existing establishment, and the ensuing standards of deviance and normality brought about repressive views of discrete social groups.<ref name="Sapouna">{{cite book |last1=Sapouna |first1=Lydia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y1-X6iP-m9UC&pg=PA70 |title=Knowledge in Mental Health: Reclaiming the Social |last2=Herrmann |first2=Peter |publisher=Nova Publishers |year=2006 |isbn=1-59454-812-9 |location=Hauppauge |page=70}}</ref>{{rp|70}} As scholars have long argued, governmental and medical institutions code menaces to authority as mental diseases during political disturbances.<ref name="Metzl">{{cite book |last=Metzl |first=Jonathan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t1Bg9QEiCAMC&pg=PA14 |title=The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease |publisher=Beacon Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-8070-8592-9 |page=14}}</ref>{{rp|14}}

According to Nicholas Kittrie, a number of phenomena considered "deviant", such as [[alcoholism]], [[drug addiction]], [[prostitution]], [[pedophilia]], and masturbation ("self-abuse"), were originally considered as moral, then legal, and now medical problems.<ref name="Manning">{{cite book |last=Manning |first=Nick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lc4OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1 |title=The therapeutic community movement: charisma and routinization |publisher=Routledge |year=1989 |isbn=0-415-02913-9 |location=London |page=1}}</ref>{{rp|1}}<ref name="Kittrie">{{cite book |last=Kittrie |first=Nicholas |url=https://archive.org/details/righttobediffere00nich |title=The right to be different: deviance and enforced therapy |publisher=Johns Hopkins Press |year=1971 |isbn=0-8018-1319-0 |url-access=registration}}</ref> Innumerable other conditions such as obesity, smoking cigarettes, draft malingering, bachelorhood, divorce, unwanted pregnancy, kleptomania, and grief, have been declared diseases by medical and psychiatric authorities.<ref>{{citation |author=Thomas Szasz |title=The Theology of Medicine |page=109 |year=1977 |publisher=Harper & Row}}</ref> Due to these perceptions, peculiar deviants were subjected to moral, then legal, and now medical modes of social control.<ref name="Manning" />{{rp|1}} Similarly, Conrad and Schneider concluded their review of the medicalization of deviance by identifying three major paradigms that have reigned over deviance designations in different historical periods: deviance as sin; deviance as crime; and deviance as sickness.<ref name="Manning" />{{rp|1}}<ref name="Conrad">{{cite book |last1=Conrad |first1=Peter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hYpZjDD67dkC&pg=PA36 |title=Deviance and medicalization: from badness to sickness |last2=Schneider |first2=Joseph |publisher=Temple University Press |year=1992 |isbn=0-87722-999-6 |page=36}}</ref>{{rp|36}}

According to [[Thomas Szasz]], "the [[Therapeutic State|therapeutic state]] swallows up everything human on the seemingly rational ground that nothing falls outside the province of health and medicine, just as the theological state had swallowed up everything human on the perfectly rational ground that nothing falls outside the province of God and religion".<ref name="Szasz, 2001">{{cite journal |last=Szasz |first=Thomas |author-link=Thomas Szasz |date=Spring 2001 |title=The Therapeutic State: The Tyranny of Pharmacracy |url=http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_05_4_szasz.pdf |journal=[[The Independent Review]] |volume=V |issue=4 |pages=485–521 |issn=1086-1653 |access-date=20 January 2012}}</ref>{{rp|515}}

=== Labeling theory ===
{{Further|Labeling theory}}
A 2002 editorial in the ''[[British Medical Journal]]'' warned of inappropriate medicalization leading to disease mongering, where the boundaries of the definition of illnesses are expanded to include personal problems as medical problems or risks of diseases are emphasized to broaden the market for medications. The authors noted:

{{blockquote|
Inappropriate medicalisation carries the dangers of unnecessary labelling, poor treatment decisions, iatrogenic illness, and economic waste, as well as the opportunity costs that result when resources are diverted away from treating or preventing more serious disease. At a deeper level it may help to feed unhealthy obsessions with health, obscure or mystify sociological or political explanations for health problems, and focus undue attention on pharmacological, individualised, or privatised solutions.<ref name=Moynihan>{{cite journal|last1=Moynihan|first1=Ray|last2=Heath|first2=Iona|last3=Henry|first3=David|title=Selling sickness: the pharmaceutical industry and disease mongering|journal=[[BMJ]]|date=13 April 2002|volume=324 | issue = 7342 |pages=886–891|pmid=11950740|pmc=1122833|doi=10.1136/bmj.324.7342.886}}</ref> 
}}

== Healthism ==
[[Public health]] campaigns have been criticized as a form of "healthism", which is moralistic in nature rather than primarily focused on health. Medical doctors Petr Shkrabanek and James McCormick wrote a series of publications on this topic in the late 1980s and early 1990s criticizing the UK's ''Health of The Nation'' campaign. These publications exposed abuse of epidemiology and statistics by public health authorities and organizations to support lifestyle interventions and screening programs.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fitzpatrick |first=Michael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qpqBAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA85 |title=The Tyranny of Health: Doctors and the Regulation of Lifestyle |date=2002-01-04 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-56346-3 |language=en}}</ref>{{Rp|page=85}}<ref name=":16">{{Cite book |last1=Fiona |first1=Sim |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jn8xC6_UW8YC&pg=PA7 |title=Issues In Public Health |last2=Martin |first2=McKee |date=2011-09-01 |publisher=McGraw-Hill Education (UK) |isbn=978-0-335-24422-5 |language=en}}</ref>{{Rp|page=7}} Inculcating a fear of ill-health and a strong notion of individual responsibility has been derided as "health fascism" by some scholars as it objectifies the individual without considering emotional or social factors.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Fitzpatrick |first1=Katie |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rm3MAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA8 |title=Health Education: Critical perspectives |last2=Tinning |first2=Richard |date=2014-02-05 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-07214-8 |language=en}}</ref>{{Rp|page=8}}<ref name=":16" />{{Rp|page=7}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zembylas |first=Michalinos |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YzorEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA81 |title=Affect and the Rise of Right-Wing Populism: Pedagogies for the Renewal of Democratic Education |date=2021-05-06 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-83840-5 |language=en}}</ref>{{Rp|page=81}}

== Professionals, patients, corporations and society ==
[[Image:Relación Médico Paciente.png|thumb|right|Conversation between doctor and patient]]Several decades on the definition of medicalization is complicated, if for no other reason than because the term is so widely used. Many contemporary critics position pharmaceutical companies in the space once held by doctors as the supposed [[catalysts]] of medicalization. Titles such as "The making of a disease"<ref name="Moynihan 2003 p.">{{cite journal | last=Moynihan | first=Ray | title=The making of a disease: female sexual dysfunction | journal=British Medical Journal | volume=326 | issue=7379 | date=2003-01-04 | pages=45–47 | pmid=12511464 | doi=10.1136/bmj.326.7379.45 | pmc=1124933 }}</ref> or "Sex, drugs, and marketing"<ref name="Mason 2003 pp. 7–7">{{cite journal | last=Mason | first=Diana J. | title=Editorial: Sex, Drugs, and Marketing | journal=The American Journal of Nursing | publisher=Lippincott Williams & Wilkins | volume=103 | issue=6 | year=2003 | issn=1538-7488 | jstor=29745103 | pages=7 | doi=10.1097/00000446-200306000-00001 | pmid=12802146 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/29745103 | access-date=2022-03-10| url-access=subscription }}</ref> critique the [[pharmaceutical industry]] for shunting everyday problems into the domain of professional [[biomedicine]]. At the same time, others reject as implausible any suggestion that society rejects [[drugs]] or drug companies and highlight that the same drugs that are allegedly used to treat [[deviance (sociology)|deviance]]s from [[societal norms]] also help many people live their lives. Even scholars who critique the societal implications of brand-name drugs generally remain open to these drugs' curative effects – a far cry from earlier calls for a revolution against the biomedical establishment. The emphasis in many quarters has come to be on "overmedicalization" rather than "medicalization" in itself.

Others, however, argue that in practice the process of medicalization tends to strip subjects of their social context, so they come to be understood in terms of the prevailing biomedical [[ideology]], resulting in a disregard for overarching social causes such as unequal distribution of power and resources.<ref>{{cite journal | pmid = 15210098 | doi=10.1016/j.socscimed.2004.01.003 | volume=59 | issue=6 | title=The medical text: between biomedicine and hegemony |date=September 2004 | author=Filc D | journal=Soc Sci Med | pages=1275–85}}</ref> A series of publications by [[Mens Sana Monographs]] have focused on medicine as a [[corporate]] capitalist enterprise.<ref>Ajai R Singh, Shakuntala A Singh, 2005, [http://www.msmonographs.org/article.asp?issn=0973-1229;year=2005;volume=3;issue=2;spage=19;epage=51;aulast=Singh "Medicine as a corporate enterprise, patient welfare centered profession, or patient welfare centered professional enterprise?"] Mens Sana Monographs, 3(2), p19-51</ref><ref>Ajai R Singh, Shakuntala A Singh, 2005, [http://www.msmonographs.org/article.asp?issn=0973-1229;year=2005;volume=3;issue=1;spage=5;epage=35;aulast=Singh "The connection between academia and industry"], Mens Sana Monographs, 3(1), p5-35</ref><ref>Ajai R Singh, Shakuntala A Singh, 2005, [http://www.msmonographs.org/article.asp?issn=0973-1229;year=2005;volume=3;issue=1;spage=41;epage=80;aulast=Singh "Public welfare agenda or corporate research agenda?"], Mens Sana Monographs, 3(1), p41-80.</ref>

Scholars argue that in the late 20th century transformation within the health sector in the US altered the relationship between people in the healthcare sector.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |title=The Wiley Blackwell companion to medical sociology |date=2021 |others=William C. Cockerham |isbn=978-1-119-63380-8 |location=Hoboken, NJ |oclc=1198989810}}</ref>{{Rp|page=497}} This has been attributed to the commodification of healthcare and the role of parties other than doctors such as insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry, and the government, referred to collectively as countervailing powers.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=499}} The doctor remains an authority figure who [[prescribes]] pharmaceuticals to [[patient]]s. However, in some countries, such as the US, ubiquitous [[direct-to-consumer advertising]] encourages patients to ask for particular drugs by name, thereby creating a conversation between consumer and drug company that threatens to cut the doctor out of the loop. Additionally, there is a widespread concern regarding the extent of the [[pharmaceutical marketing]] direct to doctors and other healthcare professionals. Examples of this direct marketing are visits by salespeople, funding of journals, training courses or conferences, incentives for prescribing, and the routine provision of "information" written by the pharmaceutical company. The role of patients in this economy has also changed. Once regarded as passive victims of medicalization, patients can now occupy active positions as [[advocates]], [[consumer]]s, or even agents of change.

In response to theory based on medicalisation being insufficient to explain social processes, some scholars have developed a concept of ''biomedicalization'' which argues that technical and scientific interventions are transforming medicine. One aspect is ''pharmaceuticalization'', the influence of the use of [[Pharmaceutical drug|pharmaceutical drugs]] rather than other interventions. Other components are computerization of parts of healthcare such as public health, the creation of a "biopolitical economy" of private research outside of state, the perception of health as a moral obligation.<ref>{{Citation |last=Clarke |first=Adele E. |title=Biomedicalization |date=2014-02-21 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118410868.wbehibs083 |encyclopedia=The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health, Illness, Behavior, and Society |pages=137–142 |editor-last=Cockerham |editor-first=William C |place=Chichester, UK |publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Ltd |language=en |doi=10.1002/9781118410868.wbehibs083 |isbn=978-1-118-41086-8 |access-date=2022-09-23 |editor2-last=Dingwall |editor2-first=Robert |editor3-last=Quah |editor3-first=Stella|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Medicalization has brought health issues to the fore, so people think more and more about things in terms of health and act to promote health. When it comes to health issues, medicine is not the only provider of answers, but there have always been alternatives and competitors. At the same time as medicalization, "paramedicalization" has strengthened: also many treatments for which there is no medical basis, at least for now, are popular and commercially successful.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Paramedicalization |editor-last=Surhone |editor-first=Lambert M |place=Tallinn |publisher= VLC Publishing| year=2010 |language=en |isbn= 978-613-3-08893-1|editor2-last=Tennoe |editor2-first=Mariam T |editor3-last=Henssonow |editor3-first=Susan F}}</ref>

== See also ==
{{Portal|Society}}
* [[Interventionism (medicine)]]
* [[Gothenburg Study of Children with DAMP]]
* [[Medical model]]
* [[Sociology of health and illness]]
* [[Social stigma]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==
* {{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/medicalizationof0000conr |url-access=registration |title=The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders |last=Conrad |first=Peter |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |year=2007 |isbn=9780801892349 |language=en |author-link=Peter Conrad (sociologist)}}
* Horwitz, Allan, and Wakefield, Jerome (2007).''The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Has Transformed Normal Sadness into Depressive Disorder.'' Oxford University Press.
* Lane, Christopher (2007). ''Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness.'' Yale University Press.
* {{cite journal|last=Illich|first=Ivan|title=The medicalization of life|journal=[[Journal of Medical Ethics]]|date=July 1975|volume=1|issue=2|pages=73–77|pmid=809583|pmc=1154458|doi=10.1136/jme.1.2.73}}
* {{cite journal|url=http://orbi.ulg.ac.be/bitstream/2268/177984/1/IJHPM29501422995400.pdf|doi=10.15171/ijhpm.2015.24|pmid=25674569|pmc=4322627|title=Quaternary prevention, an answer of family doctors to overmedicalization|journal=International Journal of Health Policy and Management|volume=4|issue=2|pages=61–64|date=February 2015|last1=Jamoulle|first1=Marc}}
* {{cite book |title = [[Silent Cells: The Secret Drugging of Captive America]]|first=Anthony Ryan |last=Hatch |publisher = [[University of Minnesota Press]] |date =2019 |location=Minnesota|pages=184 pages|isbn= 978-1517907433|oclc=1097608624}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Nye |first1=Robert A. |title=The evolution of the concept of medicalization in the late twentieth century |journal=Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences |date=2003 |volume=39 |issue=2 |pages=115–129 |doi=10.1002/jhbs.10108 |pmid=12720322 }}

{{Medical Sociology}}{{Unnecessary health care}}
{{Anti-psychiatry}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Medical sociology]]
[[Category:Medical controversies]]
[[Category:Social constructionism]]
[[Category:Social problems in medicine]]