Essay: The Concept of Sick Role in a Society

Sample Essay

One of the most important concepts in sociology is the concept of the sick role. The sick role was created by Talcott Parsons in 1951 and further expanded by other sociologists later on. Talcott saw the existence of illness as a dysfunction within the machine that ran society meaning it not only affected the mere individual but society itself. Since the very concept of sickness is an unavoidable happenstance, society must find some way of dealing with its ill before too many individuals join them which may have bad consequences for society (Thomas).

There are of course several problems which have compounded in America’s health care system over the last few decades. Questions of how the system will deal with primary prevention of chronic diseases, shortage of qualified professionals, financing of long term health care services, costs/benefit ratios of newer medical technologies and expanding the system to include those who are uninsured have been debated by policy makers for years. In comparison however several other developed nations though also struggling with the same problems have made more progress solving them than the United States.

Please go to the order form to order essays, research papers, term papers, thesis, dissertation, case study, assignments on this essay topic.