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The use of quantitative medical sociology
Author(s) -
David Blane
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
sociology of health and illness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1467-9566
pISSN - 0141-9889
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9566.00343
Subject(s) - sociology , medical sociology , social epidemiology , sociology of health and illness , social science , relation (database) , social class , theme (computing) , epidemiology , social determinants of health , positive economics , public health , health care , law , medicine , political science , economics , nursing , database , computer science , operating system
The present article reviews, in relation to quantitative work on the social structure, papers published in Sociology of Health and Illness during its first 25 years. Each issue published during the years 1979–2002 has been examined; and quantitative papers, relating to various aspects of the social structure, have been identified. Such papers are found to have formed a minor but substantively significant theme within the Journal. These contributions situate the journal between sociology and social epidemiology. Articles in the Journal, for example, have been part of sociological debates about the measurement of social class, and of social epidemiological debates about the relationship between income distribution and population health. The contribution of Sociology of Health and Illness to a number of such debates is reviewed. The article concludes that the present situation, in particular the intellectual crisis in social epidemiology and social science investment in large data sets, gives the Journal the chance to build on this distinguished tradition by encouraging, through its publication policy, the further development of quantitative medical sociology.