Course Introduction
Sociology of Medicine Final Exam
Questions
Sociology of Medicine explores the social dimensions of health, illness, and healthcare systems. The course examines how factors such as culture, socioeconomic status, race, gender, and public policy influence medical practice and health outcomes. Students analyze the roles of healthcare professionals, the patient experience, and the impact of social institutions on health disparities. Through contemporary case studies and theoretical perspectives, the course encourages critical thinking about the power structures and social dynamics that shape medical knowledge, healthcare delivery, and public health interventions.
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
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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) In Germany,infectious and parasitic diseases are relatively rare,chronic and degenerative diseases are relatively common,and life expectancy is high.From these facts,we can conclude that Germany has experienced the
A) epidemiological transition.
B) sociological transition.
C) expectational profile.
D) demographic shift.
E) developed nation syndrome.
Answer: A
Q2) Which of the following research topics best reflects the sociological perspective?
A) how women's traditional role can foster depression
B) how women's hormonal swings can foster depression
C) how best to use mood-altering drugs in treating depressed women
D) how best to use psychotherapy in treating depressed women
E) how women's relationships with their mothers can foster depression
Answer: A
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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) Research suggests that
A) having a gun in the home significantly increases the odds of homicide.
B) having a gun in the home reduces the chances of being killed if one's home is forcibly entered.
C) strangers kill about half of all homicide victims.
D) gun ownership increases the risk of homicide for African-American men but not for white men.
E) none of the above
Answer: A
Q2) Health lifestyles
A) are based on both life chances and life choices.
B) can affect life chances, but life chances do not affect life choices.
C) are very similar among Americans of different social classes.
D) are not affected by socialization or life experiences.
E) are purely a matter of individual choice.
Answer: A
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4
Chapter 3: The Social Distribution of Illness in the United States
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24 Verified Questions
24 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following is true?
A) Current data suggests that Hispanic Americans die younger than do white non-Hispanics.
B) Hispanic Americans are less likely than white non-Hispanics to have health insurance.
C) On average, immigrants from Central America are in as good health as immigrants from Mexico.
D) Infant mortality is considerably higher among Hispanic Americans than among white non-Hispanics.
E) Hispanic Americans are paradoxically vulnerable to malaria.
Answer: B
Q2) Compared to earlier in this century,the American population now has a A) higher percentage of elderly persons.
B) lower percentage of elderly persons.
C) higher rate of acute illnesses.
D) lower rate of prostate cancer.
E) higher rate of infant mortality.
Answer: A
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Chapter 4: Illness and Death in the Less Developed Nations
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29 Verified Questions
29 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) How is infant mortality linked to women's social status? How is maternal mortality linked to women's status?
Q2) Chronic malnutrition has largely been eliminated in A) India.
B) Costa Rica.
C) Senegal.
D) Brazil.
E) Honduras.
Q3) 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.
Q4) Why should war and disasters be considered public health issues?
Q5) Why has HIV/AIDS spread more rapidly in Africa than in the United States? Why has heterosexual transmission played a greater role in Africa?
Q6) What role do the more developed nations play-intentionally or unintentionally-in fostering illness in the less developed nations?
Page 6
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Chapter 5: The Social Meanings of Illness
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27 Verified Questions
27 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) According to the medical model of illness,
A) illness is anything less than a complete state of physical, social, and mental well-being.
B) illness is best dealt with through holistic treatment.
C) doctors around the world generally reach the same diagnosis when confronted with the same symptoms.
D) a given illness will manifest itself in different ways in different countries.
E) doctors should recognize that the body is more than a mere machine or factory.
Q2) Individuals who live with a troublesome condition sometimes push for the condition to be medicalized in order to
A) encourage research into the condition.
B) convince doctors to take them seriously.
C) discourage others from blaming them for their condition.
D) all of the above
E) none of the above
Q3) What contribution does Parsons' concept of a sick role make to our understanding of sickness in society? What are the weaknesses of that concept?
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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) A woman who uses a wheelchair and wears a "Crip Pride" button is engaging in A) passing.
B) avoiding stigma.
C) disclosing stigma.
D) challenging stigma.
E) stigmatizing.
Q2) Chronic pain is more common among which of the following?
A) men
B) women
C) middle-class persons
D) suburbanites
E) white Americans
Q3) Someone who wins wheelchair marathons to prove he is no different from others despite his disability is A) passing.
B) engaging in deviance disavowal.
C) challenging stigma.
D) engaging in illness behavior.
E) engaging in sick role behavior.
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Q4) Should people with disabilities be considered a minority group? Why or why not?
Chapter 7: The Sociology of Mental Illness
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29 Verified Questions
29 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Social stress is most likely to lead to mental illness if the stress
A) is chronic.
B) is an acute trauma.
C) is linked to a life event, rather than an ongoing situation.
D) is treated with antidepressants.
E) is treated with antipsychotics.
Q2) The sociological model of mental illness assumes that
A) psychiatrists label any behavior that breaks social norms as mental illness.
B) anyone who breaks social norms is equally likely to be labeled mentally ill.
C) behavior becomes labeled as mental illness when powerful persons consider it both unacceptable and incomprehensible.
D) treatment for mental illness may not help, but it cannot hurt.
E) sociologists can treat mental illness better than psychologists can.
Q3) Research using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)suggests that
A) the DSM has a high degree of reliability.
B) clinicians are able to arrive at consistent diagnoses.
C) different clinicians may diagnose the same patient differently.
D) politics are not involved in the construction of diagnostic categories.
E) diagnostic categories are stable over time.
Q4) How are residential colleges similar to and different from total institutions?
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Chapter 8: Health Care in the United States
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30 Verified Questions
30 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Research suggests that managed care strongly affects patients'
A) access to care.
B) quality of care.
C) satisfaction.
D) all of the above
E) none of the above
Q2) What kinds of health care reforms do you think are necessary? What stakeholders would be likely to oppose those reforms?
Q3) Individuals who have fee-for-service insurance
A) must first pay their medical bills and then request reimbursement from their insurance company.
B) pay a flat fee per year to cover all their medical expenses.
C) pay lower premiums than those who have actuarial insurance.
D) always pay premiums based on community risk ratings.
E) must receive care from doctors affiliated with their insurance company.
Q4) What factors account for the rise of managed care? What are the potential pitfalls and benefits of managed care?
Q5) How has Canada's single payer system kept health care costs down more effectively than the US system?
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Chapter 9: Health Care Around the Globe
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29 Verified Questions
29 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The health care system in Great Britain is best described as A) an entrepreneurial system.
B) a National Health Service.
C) National Health Insurance.
D) social insurance.
E) capitalistic.
Q2) Health outcomes in the Democratic Republic of Congo are
A) comparable with health outcomes in the Mexican health care system.
B) about average for a less developed nation.
C) among the worst in the world.
D) similar to health outcomes in the Chinese health care system.
E) none of the above
Q3) 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
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
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Sample Questions
Q1) How does the profit motive affect the experiences of hospital patients and nursing home residents?
Q2) Imagine that you are the primary caregiver for a family member with a chronic condition.What would your day look like? Your week or your month? What are the benefits of being able to care for someone at home? What hardships might you face,and how might you do so?
Q3) Which of the following has contributed to the rise in home care?
A) the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill
B) the increasing complexity of medical technologies
C) financial incentives for hospitals to keep patients longer
D) the rising divorce rate
E) All of the above are causes.
Q4) Paid home health services are
A) most often used by poor persons.
B) generally provided by new doctors.
C) often provided by home health aides.
D) less common than in the past.
E) readily available at low cost.
Q5) Give an example of how medical technology shapes society,and of how society shapes medical technology.
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) RBRVS (resource-based relative value scale)was adopted to increase
A) the incomes of medical specialists.
B) the incomes of doctors in primary practice.
C) the cost of Medicaid and Medicare.
D) the cost of drugs.
E) hospital profits.
Q2) Respect for allopathic medicine had grown by the year 1900 because
A) Americans increasingly defined health care as complex matter requiring expert intervention.
B) Americans increasingly believed in the benefits of science.
C) of the impact of the Flexner Report.
D) all of the above
E) a and b only
Q3) Doctors' power over their patients increases when
A) patients are physically unable to communicate.
B) doctors work in solo practice.
C) doctors and patients share the same culture.
D) doctors and patients share the same language.
E) doctors belong to the AMA.
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Page 13
Chapter 12: Other Mainstream and Alternative Health Care
Providers
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26 Verified Questions
26 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) 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.
Q2) Compared to modern direct-entry midwives,physicians more often
A) use unnecessary and potentially dangerous drugs and surgeries
B) restrain from using drugs in the delivery process.
C) support the demedicalization of birth.
D) offer home birth services.
E) earn modest incomes.
Q3) How have attitudes toward women and femininity affected the social position of nursing as an occupation,historically and currently? How do those attitudes shape the experiences of male and female nurses today?
Q4) What factors make it easier for some mainstream health care occupations compared to others to approach or attain professional status? (Do not include alternative healers in your answer.)
Page 14
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Chapter 13: Issues in Bioethics
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27 Verified Questions
27 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) In the Baby Doe case,
A) doctors performed surgery unlikely to improve the baby's quality of life.
B) parents forced the doctors to perform surgery that the doctors considered unwarranted.
C) the baby died after its parents refused to authorize potentially life-saving surgery.
D) doctors demanded federal funding for performing surgery on a retarded baby.
E) lawyers forced parents to comply with their doctors' decisions regarding their baby's care.
Q2) During the 1960s,hospital selection committees
A) typically decided who would receive kidney dialysis based solely on medical criteria. B) typically decided who would receive kidney dialysis based in part on social criteria.
C) typically decided who would receive kidney dialysis based solely on age.
D) were abolished by most hospitals.
E) were declared legal, but nonetheless fell into disuse.
Q3) Why should sociologists concern themselves with bioethical issues? Why should bioethicists study sociology?
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