2020 Volume 31 Issue 1 Pages 32-39
This article discusses about the significant role of the Annual Review of Health and Medical Sociology in the history of the Japanese version of medical sociology. The author reconsiders the process whereby the Japanese version of health and medical sociology was established since the 1970s, reviewing the articles of the Review in the earlier days and other materials that were published under the name of the Japanese Society of Health and Medical Sociology in the 1980s. It reveals that there were some unique experiences in Japan especially on health damages in the 1960s and the 1970s that made the social scientists who were interested in health problems carry out the sociological researches of health and social sufferings in Japan. Those damages included the drug induced sufferings and the environmental pollution induced sufferings. Such experiences gave birth to the Japanese version of health and medical sociology (Type A). This type of medical sociology interacted with the imported western type of medical sociology (Type B) in and out of the Annual Review. Such interactions have consequently produced the fruitful result of the contemporary Japanese health and medical sociology.
