Sociologies of New Zealand by Charles Crothers

Author:Charles Crothers
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

4.1.6 Health Studies (Dew, 2014)

Health sociology has had a very strong presence in NZ sociology since the inception of sociology as a distinct academic subject, and NZ health sociologists, both domestically and through overseas careers, have made rich contributions to policy and advocacy and to theoretical developments in the discipline at a worldwide level. Although much work has been carried out within or allied with more health-orientated units, much also has been carried out by mainstream sociology staff. This is common to other national sociologies, although Fran Collyer, in her study (2013) of the history of medical sociology in Australia , the UK, and the USA examining contributions to a number of medical sociology journals between 1990 and 2011, found that more NZ-based articles explicitly stated their theoretical orientation, which suggests that NZ medical sociology is more fully integrated into the discipline and its theoretical concerns.

Health themes were prominent in much proto-sociology, e.g. from the 1920s some students studying preventive medicine at the OU wrote on sociological topics (Chap. 2). The establishment of the School of Social Sciences at VUW in 1950 led to some health-related topics being undertaken by social work staff and students. Health sociology was taught at VUW Sociology from its establishment by Robb , who undertook an extensive study of medical social work in the early 1960s, personally conducting interviews (n = 99) at 25 hospitals throughout NZ to better understand the operation of medical social work services. Research links were established with epidemiologists at Wellington hospital, who were carrying out studies of the (mal)adjustments arising from migration from the Pacific. A sequence of lecturing staff have lectured and researched in the sociology of health and illness, including organ donation and transplantation, health professional–patient interactions, the social meanings of medications and health service interactions with cancer patients, death, and dying, and sleep and dementia. Research and teaching activities related to medical sociology were undertaken at VUW’s Health Services Research Centre (which has had sociologists on its staff) from 1993. In 2000 the NZ Institute for Research on Aging was established, but it was subsumed into the Institute of Policy Studies in 2010.

A significant contribution has been through graduates. John McKinlay, a very early graduate in sociology at VUW, went on to become an outstanding scholar in the field of medical sociology, with his work in the USA being recognised by the American Sociological Association (ASA) with a Distinguished Career Award. McKinlay is described in the award statement as ‘an intellectual giant with over three decades of seminal articles in public health and clinical health care’ (ASA, 2008). Evan Willis, who graduated from VUW in 1976, received the Australian Sociological Association Distinguished Service Award in 2013, with his PhD thesis earlier having received the Jean Martin Award for best thesis in social theory and research, while the book based on this thesis, Medical Dominance: The Division of Labour in Australian Health Care, was voted in 2003 by his peers as one of the ten most influential books in Australian sociology.

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