Medicalization Models and Biomedicalization Models

Abstract

Recently, the sociology of medical science, which combines the sociology of medicine with that of science, has focused on several issues related to biomedicine and advanced medicine. This article examines the process by which, form the viewpoint of the sociology of medical science, medicalization models have been transformed into biomedicalization models. The analysis focuses on understanding the intersection of the sociology of medicine and the sociology of science. The concept of medicalization was defined in the 1970s as follows : (1) the redefinition of social problems as medical problems and (2) medical dominance over patients. This model presumed the dualistic frame of “disease as a biological fact” and “illness as deviance, ” taking the former for granted and focusing on the latter for research subjects. In the 1980s, social constructionists applied medicalization models to biomedical topics to discuss the social aspects of biomedicine and introduced the term “biomedicalization” without a clear definition. With the development of genomics, social constructionists in the 1990s used the concept of geneticization and redefined social problems as having been genetically caused; however, this redefinition did not develop the content analysis of genetic medicine. However, sociologists of medical science in the 2000s propose the concept of biomedicalization as a “transformation” with special reference to the innovation of biomedical sciences and technologies. This biomedicalization model is characterized by a comprehensive analysis of both scientific and social knowledge, empirical case studies, and content analysis from an insider's perspective.