Social Construction of Health and Illness: a Theoretical Revisiting on Diverged Dimensions

The sociology of health and illness has a long history. Over the last 100 years many concepts, theories, findings have been explored for the better understanding of health behavior of human being and the role of the society. Majority theories and approaches relating to the health and illness have been originally propounded by the western sociologists only. Even today researchers in developing countries are heavily depending on western theories to explain health culture and behavior of the rural community. In developing countries social class, caste, gender etc play a vital role in accessing suitable healthcare facilities. More than these the underlying social, political and economic forces are also counting a lot. It is found that sociology of health and illness significantly helps us in better understanding of people‟s concepts about onset of various diseases and its cure in a cross cultural framework. Health and illness are a universal concept in all societies. Each community organizes itself through experience, through different means, through different elements and finally will develop different approaches to fight against illness and diseases. In this way each and every society develops specific medical institutions called health care system in a relevant social context. This health care system will have origin, symptoms, development, process and curing of various diseases/illness. This system will have different symbols expressed through the means of practices, interactions and institutions. This paper is bas don the review of various secondary materials.