Medicalization

"Medicalization" is a key concept in medical anthropology. Please take a few minutes to learn more about this concept. You will need this information throughout the week.

In our textbook, medicalization is defined as: "the defining of a condition as a disease, or a condition in need of medical surveillance" (Wiley and Allen 424). From a social or cultural point of view, it is interesting to consider how disease categories are created and what behaviors or experiences are called a disease. From a biomedical perspective, many diseases have a clear biological component while others are less clearly defined. For example, many mental health disorders are not clearly defined biologically.

Please watch the brief video (7 min) below for more elaboration of what "medicalization" means:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6LsrilMGTI Links to an external site.

Can you think of an example of medicalization you have observed?