7.2 The Social Construction of Health
Amy Huskey and Elizabeth B. Pearce
“It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.”
—Mahatma Gandhi
Health is the “state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity,” as defined by the World Health Organization (2005) in its Constitution. The organization goes on to state that families and communities are able to thrive when individuals are able to maintain health.
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 25 identifies health as a human right:
1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age, or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection (United Nations, 1948).
While the status of health is very real, it is also important to examine the aspects of health and illness that are socially constructed. As members of society, we share assumptions about reality that define both health and illness. Illness has a biological component, yet it also embodies an independent element that is experienced by the person and observed by those outside of the illness. Societies construct the idea of “health” differently from place to place and over time. For example, many societies consider health and health care to be a human right that all human beings are entitled to, but this is not universally true (figure 7.1). What is your viewpoint?
The social construction of the idea of family, as discussed in Chapter 1, plays a special role in the health of families in the United States. In all other industrialized countries, health care is considered a human right, and all individuals can access comparable care regardless of family status. But in the United States, health care insurance is accessed through a variety of systems, all of which have age, income, employment status, and family relationships as criteria. How do definitions of “family” impact the access of any individual to health care?
Social Stigma and Family Health
Society informs the definitions for when an illness can be considered a disability, how eligibility for insurance and medical coverage are determined, what illnesses are perceived as legitimate, when the reality of an illness is questioned, and what illnesses are stigmatized (Griffiths & Keirns, 2015). These social constructs can, in themselves, contribute to differentiation in individual health as well as stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. Stigma, the social process whereby individuals who are taken to be different in some way are rejected by the greater society in which they live