Aspects of health and illness in societies
Part 1:
1. Who is ultimately responsible for decisions and policies that are made in a democracy such as the United States: the people or their elected representatives?
2. How would you design a research project that studies the relationship between campaign contributions to elected representatives and their subsequent voting records? What would be your hypothesis? What kinds of data would you need to gather? How would you gather ac-curate data?
Part 2:
1. Why is it important to explain the social, as well as the biological, aspects of health and illness in societies?
2. In what ways are race, class, and gender inter-twined with physical and mental disorders?
3. How would functionalists, conflict theorists, and symbolic interactionists suggest that healthcare delivery might be improved in the United States?
4. Based on this chapter, how do you think illness and disability will be handled in the United States in the near future? Are there things that we can learn from other nations regarding the delivery of health care? Why or why not?
