A-Level Sociology: health

Health is one of the four options in the first section of Paper 2 in A-level Sociology (for example, AQA A-level Sociology 7192). Its content covers the social construction of health and illness and models of health, the unequal distribution of health chances by class, gender, ethnicity and region, inequalities in access to health care, mental illness, and the role of medicine, the health professions and the globalised health industry. This material covers each of those areas.

The quiz begins with models and roles: the contrast between the biomedical and social models, Parsons's sick role with its rights and obligations, and Illich's idea of clinical iatrogenesis. It then turns to inequality, using the Office for National Statistics finding that in 2020 to 2022 healthy life expectancy for males in England was 51.1 years in the most deprived areas and 70.1 years in the least deprived. You calculate the gap, then work through the explanations considered in the Black Report, the material and social selection explanations among them. Questions on gender and ethnicity ask what the evidence in an invented study supports, and Tudor Hart's inverse care law explains why care is often thinnest where need is greatest.

The last part covers mental illness and medical power: Rosenhan's study of pseudo-patients and the labelling view, Goffman's total institutions and the mortification of the self, and medicalisation, including the role of the pharmaceutical industry.

Every quiz question is built on an invented case or a real figure, has one defensible answer, and comes with an explanation that adds a criticism or an alternative view.

The material offers four formats. The 12-question quiz explains each answer. The 16-card flashcard deck covers the key concepts, from the sick role to Foucault's clinical gaze and Navarro's Marxist view. The printable written work sets eight open questions, from explaining two explanations of class inequalities to assessing the labelling view of mental illness, with ruled space for handwritten answers that are then checked. The oral exam puts you in front of an examiner who asks one question at a time, follows up on your reasoning and gives brief feedback at the end.

Use it if you are studying the Health option, or to add evidence on inequality to answers in stratification and families.

• Compare the biomedical and social models of health and explain the social construction of illness
• Explain Parsons's sick role and Illich's types of iatrogenesis
• Interpret evidence on class inequalities in health and evaluate the Black Report's four explanations
• Explain gender, ethnic and regional inequalities in health and the inverse care law
• Compare labelling, realist and structural views of mental illness, including Goffman's total institutions
• Assess the power of medicine, medicalisation and the role of the global pharmaceutical industry

Practice material written by Zestly, based on the Health option of A-level Sociology specifications (for example AQA A-level Sociology 7192, specification version 1.2, section 4.2.3). Healthy life expectancy figures: ONS, Healthy life expectancy by national area deprivation, England and Wales, 2020 to 2022.