<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>The aim of this paper is to analyse the sociological literature on pharmaceuticalisation and see how sociology helps us understand and explain the phenomenon. We then discuss how sociology, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries, defines the process of pharmaceuticalisation and how this last is evolving. The paper points out that, while medicalisation remains a key concept for health sociology, it is increasingly being queried and/or extended to allow for a techno-scientific era of biomedicalisation (Clarke et al. 2003) and to acknowledge the importance of the pharmaceutical industry in this process (Williams, Martin and Gabe 2011a, 2011b). Particular attention will be paid to the process of pharmaceuticalisation as brought about not just by doctors and their prescriptions, but by the central role of pharmaceutical promoters and the marketing of drugs.</p></abstract>

The aim of this paper is to analyse the sociological literature on pharmaceuticalisation and see how sociology helps us understand and explain the phenomenon. We then discuss how sociology, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries, defines the process of pharmaceuticalisation and how this last is evolving. The paper points out that, while medicalisation remains a key concept for health sociology, it is increasingly being queried and/or extended to allow for a techno-scientific era of biomedicalisation (Clarke et al. 2003) and to acknowledge the importance of the pharmaceutical industry in this process (Williams, Martin and Gabe 2011a, 2011b). Particular attention will be paid to the process of pharmaceuticalisation as brought about not just by doctors and their prescriptions, but by the central role of pharmaceutical promoters and the marketing of drugs.

From Medicalisation to Pharmaceuticalisation - A Sociological Overview. New Scenarios for the Sociology of Health

University Milano-Bicocca, Department of Sociology and Social Research, 8 Via Bicocca degli Arcimboldi, Edificio U7, 20126 Milano, Italy

Social Change Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the sociological literature on pharmaceuticalisation and see how sociology helps us understand and explain the phenomenon....

From Medicalisation to Pharmaceuticalisation - A Sociological Overview. New Scenarios for the Sociology of Health

Published Online: Mar 04, 2015

Page range: 119 - 140

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/scr-2015-0002

© by Mara Tognetti Bordogna

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.