Reflexive Modernity and the Sociology of Health
Description
The analysis and explanation of increasingly complex social phenomena represents one of the foremost challenges of sociological theory. This is particularly important in the sociology of health because definitions of health, mechanisms of disease, the nature of clinical medicine, and the structure of health care delivery are all undergoing fundamental transformations in late modernity. In this chapter, we draw upon the insights of Ulrich Beck (1992, 1994, 1999) to demonstrate the requisite elements of a health sociology “on the move” that can engage the multidimensional and dynamic health-related phenomena of late modernity. We employ Beck’s conceptualization of reflexive modernization to analyze critical developments in the relationship between sociological theory, medicine, and the contemporary landscape of health and illness. Connecting these various developments helps us make sense of a contemporary health landscape that can often feel fractured and chaotic, but which is systematically curated by fundamental social forces