Aging, Health, and Medicine

 In this blog, I'll be talking about the social problems people face still often today regarding aging, health, and medicine. Whether it's through age, race, gender, etc., these are real problems that real people struggle with every day, not just something we read about. Looking back on the sociological perspectives, we can see how they're involved in this topic as well. Starting of with functionalism, the patient and doctor roles are required to fulfill this perspective. There must be a "sick role", the patient, for a doctor to do their job in providing the care. If nobody ever got sick, hurt, or ill, we wouldn't really need doctors; therefore, supporting the perspective of this functioning society.  Moving on to the conflict theory, which is supported by social inequality. This is unfortunately seen a lot in people getting sick or even the quality of the care they receive. Lastly, the symbolic interactionism theory, claiming that health and illness are just a social construct and health conditions are determined by society. It also goes on to state that doctors manage this to show authority and knowledge.  



A great example of a health condition affected by social problems is obesity. Obesity is abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a health risk. 

https://www.who.int/health-topics/obesity#tab=tab_1

While other factors can cause obesity, in the social problems sense, I think the main causes would be social class, race, and ethnicity. Whether it's because of economical reasons or simply because certain minority groups don't receive that quality care that was mentioned earlier. Obesity can also cause other major health issues such as cancer, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes. Managing something like this can be hard, but the CDC is working on it by partnering with state and local groups to help prevention and treatment. 

The Space Coast Health Foundation is a non-profit organization located in Rockledge. This company seeks to meet the needs of the community based upon the information they gather from people within the community. One of their programs that stuck out to me is their Children's Advocacy Center of Brevard. This program works alongside the Child Protection Team to prevent and investigate child abuse and protect victims. They also have a counseling program that offers professional help to adults, children, and adolescents. 

https://www.schfbrevard.org/change-your-life/

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