Week 4 Notes SS

Guiding Questions: 

How is stress related to social status?

How is social status related to health?

How is social connectedness related to health?

How does neighborhood and social environment impact health?

How is social dysfunction linked to suicide?

Barr Chapter 4: Understanding How Low Social Status Leads to Poor Health

Chapter 4 in the Barr book discusses the biological-psychological-sociological mechanisms that link low social status to health.

In this chapter, you will learn about the following terms and concepts:

· The role of stress in health

· Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis

· Allostatic load

· Effects on the body with chronically elevated allostatic load

· The role of work and stress

· How income inequality affects health

· The role of social capital on health

· How neighborhood social environment relates to health

· The role of social networks and social participation on health

· Defining despair

· Deaths of despair

This course is the "Sociology of Healthcare" and it is important to think about society as functioning in particular ways that we as individuals plug into. In order to understand the sociological perspective of health as it relates to a person's social place in society, please watch the following video on the structural functional perspective. In this video, it covers the ideas of Emile Durkheim (1890s) who in spoke about social anomie and its role in the health of individuals. Please watch the video link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR3igiwaeyc&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtMJ-AfB_7J1538YKWkZAnGA&index=7