Sociology of Medicine
Exam Materials
Course Introduction
Sociology of Medicine explores the social dimensions of health, illness, and healthcare systems. This course examines how social structures, cultural beliefs, economic inequalities, and institutions influence the experience of illness and the delivery of medical care. Students analyze topics such as the social construction of health and disease, the roles of healthcare professionals, patient-provider relationships, medicalization, and the impact of policies and inequalities on health outcomes. The course encourages critical thinking about how race, gender, class, and power dynamics shape health experiences and access to medical services in contemporary societies.
Recommended Textbook
The Sociology of Health Healing and Illness 7th Edition by Gregory L. Weiss
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13 Chapters
357 Verified Questions
357 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/study-set/2026 Page 2
Chapter 1: The Sociology of Health,Illness, and Health Care
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21 Verified Questions
21 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/40286
Sample Questions
Q1) According to most scholars,life expectancy in the United States increased dramatically after 1900 because of
A) the introduction of smallpox inoculation.
B) the development of new medical treatments.
C) changes in nutrition and living conditions.
D) the natural evolution of epidemics.
E) the natural evolution of microorganisms into less dangerous forms.
Answer: C
Q2) Researchers increasingly use big data because it
A) reflects virtually the entire population.
B) less often was collected for a specific purpose that might have biased the results.
C) is increasingly accessible due to electronic record keeping.
D) All of the above
E) None of the above
Answer: D
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3
Chapter 2: The Social Sources of Illness
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29 Verified Questions
29 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following is true?
A) Nicotine is an addictive drug.
B) Tobacco use contributes to infant mortality.
C) Living or working around tobacco smokers increases risks of mortality and morbidity.
D) all of the above
E) a and b only
Answer: D
Q2) Which of the following is inherently the most dangerous to use?
A) heroin
B) cocaine
C) opium
D) caffeine
E) alcohol
Answer: E
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Chapter 3: The Social Distribution of Illness in the United States
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24 Verified Questions
24 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/40288
Sample Questions
Q1) The relationship between social class and health in part can be explained by A) the kinds of work available to poor persons.
B) the greater environmental hazards in poor neighborhoods.
C) the housing available to poor persons.
D) all of the above
E) a and b only
Answer: D
Q2) Intimate partner violence
A) threatens men's lives as often as it threatens women's lives.
B) serves as a form of social control, according to your textbook.
C) serves as a form of social network, according to your textbook.
D) is not against the law.
E) is most often reported by Asian American women.
Answer: B
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Chapter 4: Illness and Death in the Less Developed Nations
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29 Verified Questions
29 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/40289
Sample Questions
Q1) The idea of global health
A) suggests that health and illness can cross borders.
B) suggests that both international corporations and migrant workers can affect health.
C) fits well with a critical sociological perspective.
D) all of the above
E) none of the above
Q2) The primary cause of low life expectancy in the less developed nations is
A) dictatorship.
B) poverty.
C) religious warfare.
D) genetic defects.
E) air pollution.
Q3) Of the following,which is the most important cause of infant mortality in less developed nations?
A) herpes
B) emphysema
C) accidents
D) illegal drug use
E) malnutrition and infection
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Page 6
Chapter 5: The Social Meanings of Illness
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27 Verified Questions
27 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following is least well explained by the sick role model?
A) the illegal drug user whose family rejects him after he gets AIDS
B) the illegal drug user whose family supports him after he gets AIDS
C) the person who seeks medical care for syphilis
D) the person who seeks medical care for a mild cold
E) the person who believes doctors always know best
Q2) The history of ADHD as a "disease" shows that
A) drug companies can play an important role in medicalization.
B) the FDA has helped reduce the price of rare drugs.
C) doctors play a much larger role than any other group in promoting medicalization.
D) prescription drugs can only be sold to treat illnesses for which the drugs have been scientifically tested.
E) feminists have played a major role in medicalization.
Q3) Which of the following is a negative social sanction?
A) bribes
B) execution
C) illness
D) disease
E) socialization
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Page 7
Chapter 6: The Experience of Disability, Chronic Pain, and Chronic Illness
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28 Verified Questions
28 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) US physicians:
A) are well-trained in pain management.
B) are especially likely to undertreat chronic pain among minorities.
C) are especially likely to prescribe pain medication to women.
D) do not allow drug trafficking laws to influence how they treat chronic pain.
E) are typically unconcerned about the risk of addiction when treating chronic pain.
Q2) Films such as The Nightmare on Elm Street and Peter Pan
A) equate physical deformity with physical illness.
B) reduce prejudice against disabled persons.
C) equate physical deformity with moral deformity.
D) reflect a medical model of disability.
E) reflect a social model of disability.
Q3) How does the social construction of illness-both specific illnesses and illness in general-affect the lives of persons who have chronic illnesses?
Q4) In part,an individual's experience of disability and illness reflects their social identity.What do studies tell us about how women's and men's experiences of disability differ?
Q5) Should people with disabilities be considered a minority group? Why or why not?
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Chapter 7: The Sociology of Mental Illness
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29 Verified Questions
29 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/40292
Sample Questions
Q1) The history of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)suggests that
A) those working in mental health generally agree on the causes of mental illness.
B) our system of psychiatric diagnoses has resulted in part from a series of political fights.
C) those working in the mental health field generally agree on how to treat the different mental illnesses.
D) psychiatrists generally agree on how to treat homosexuality.
E) the DSM is now highly valid.
Q2) Following the development of capitalism,
A) religious control over persons we might now label mentally ill declined.
B) family networks strengthened and so families became better able to care at home for those labelled mentally ill.
C) the market broadened, making it easier for those we might label mentally ill to find productive work.
D) the rise of Christianity led to more people being labelled as mentally ill.
E) none of the above
Q3) How do society's views on,and responses to,mental illness resemble those of past centuries? How do they differ?
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Chapter 8: Health Care in the United States
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30 Verified Questions
30 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/40293
Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following is true?
A) Medical journals will not publish articles on drug research funded by the pharmaceutical industry.
B) Doctors cannot legally prescribe a drug as treatment for a given condition unless it has been scientifically tested for that specific condition.
C) Pharmaceutical companies cannot legally market a new and expensive drug unless it differs substantially from older, less expensive drugs.
D) University-based medical researchers do not accept research funding from the pharmaceutical industry.
E) none of the above
Q2) Compared to persons who have health insurance,uninsured persons
A) are more likely to die in any given year.
B) are more likely to postpone needed health care.
C) are more likely to rely on medical experiments as a means of obtaining treatment.
D) all of the above
E) none of the above
Q3) Why have health care costs risen in the United States?
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10
Chapter 9: Health Care Around the Globe
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29 Verified Questions
29 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/40294
Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following countries does not guarantee health care to its citizens?
A) United States
B) Germany
C) Great Britain
D) a and b only
E) all of the above
Q2) Most funding for hospitals in the Democratic Republic of Congo comes from
A) the federal government.
B) health districts.
C) Congolese church groups.
D) donations from the more developed nations.
E) only c and d
Q3) Life expectancy in Mexico is
A) only slightly lower than in the United States.
B) slightly higher than the United States.
C) similar to average life expectancies in the less developed nations.
D) low to decreases in the health of the population.
E) declining due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Q4) Which nation's health care system would you prefer? Why?
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Chapter 10: Health Care Settings and Technologies
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30 Verified Questions
30 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/40295
Sample Questions
Q1) The cost of hospice care is
A) less expensive than hospital or nursing home care.
B) more expensive than nursing home care.
C) more expensive than hospital care.
D) about the same as hospital or nursing home care.
E) dropping due to the feminization of aging.
Q2) Hospitals were first developed to
A) provide care for the "deserving" poor.
B) protect wealthy people from seeing poor, sick, homeless people.
C) deal with epidemics.
D) provide care for those with chronic illnesses.
E) generate profits for investors.
Q3) Most hospice clients pay for their care
A) out of pocket.
B) through private insurance.
C) through family contributions.
D) with Medicare.
E) none of the above
Q4) What forces have led to the cooptation of hospices,and how does this cooptation affect users and potential users of hospices?
Page 12
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Chapter 11: The Profession of Medicine
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28 Verified Questions
28 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) During most of the nineteenth century,allopathic doctors typically A) were highly respected by the general public.
B) based their treatment on scientific data.
C) were far better trained than their competitors.
D) received their education in Europe.
E) received less than one year of training.
Q2) You have been appointed to an American Medical Association committee on reforming medical education.What would be your top three goals for reforming medical education? Why? What policies would you want to implement to achieve those goals? Why?
Q3) The federal government developed a vested interest in restraining health care costs following the implementation of A) DRGs.
B) HMOs.
C) Medicaid and Medicare.
D) horizontal integration.
E) vertical integration.
Q4) What is cultural health capital? Which populations are least likely to have cultural health capital? How does low cultural health capital affect doctor-patient relationships?
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Chapter 12: Other Mainstream and Alternative Health Care
Providers
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26 Verified Questions
26 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/40297
Sample Questions
Q1) Over the years,chiropractors have
A) improved their field's status by avoiding legal battles with the AMA.
B) lost the ability to request reimbursement for their services from insurance programs.
C) improved their status by increasing educational standards for entry into the field.
D) a and b only
E) all of the above
Q2) In the early twentieth century,
A) nursing schools regarded student nurses as a cheap source of labor.
B) student nurses spent long hours in classroom study.
C) trained nurses found it easy to obtain paid employment.
D) most nurses were black women.
E) most nurses were immigrants.
Q3) Which of the following helped doctors gain control over childbirth?
A) Religious beliefs that women should suffer in childbirth.
B) The growing belief that childbirth was a natural biological process.
C) Popular prejudice against immigrants, women, and non-whites.
D) Laws supporting allopathic medicine.
E) Scientific evidence of the safety of doctor-assisted childbirth.
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Chapter 13: Issues in Bioethics
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27 Verified Questions
27 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/40298
Sample Questions
Q1) Researchers in the Willowbrook study obtained
A) fully voluntary consent from the parents of their subjects.
B) fully informed consent from the parents of their subjects.
C) consent from the parents of their subjects, but that consent was neither informed nor voluntary.
D) no consent of any sort from the parents of their subjects.
E) consent from their subjects directly.
Q2) The adoption of bioethical guidelines has led to which of the following?
A) Clinicians who focus more on documenting their compliance with guidelines than on following the spirit of those guidelines.
B) Ethics review boards that focus primarily on reducing law suits.
C) Significant reduction in the worst sorts of abuses of human subjects.
D) all of the above
E) none of the above
Q3) The modern bioethics movement developed in the
A) 1920s.
B) 1930s.
C) 1940s.
D) 1960s.
E) 1990s.
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