Medykalizacja społeczeństwa w socjologii amerykańskiej
The medicalization of society in the American Sociology

Summary/Abstract: A process in which medicine enters into everyday life making it medical, by defining and treating states, moods, behaviors and conditions as medical problems (diseases, disorders) is a global phenomenon which expanded between 20th and 21st century. This process has various regional dynamics determined by political, socio-economical and religious factors. In Poland, medicalization, is quite a new phenomenon that needs to be researched. A vast body of American literature in that field suggests high level of medicalization of this society. This essay depicts medicalization in the context of American medical sociology. Several issues is considered: historical perspective, broader theoretical context of that phenomenon, levels of medicalization, its models in a diachronic view, main authors and essential examples of medicalization. This will be the starting point for considerations on the medicalization process in Poland.

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