From the
functionalist perspective of Talcott Parsons, health is something that allows people to perform
their roles in society effectively, paying back the investment society has made in their
education and in raising them from childhood to adulthood. From this perspective, making health
care universally accessible free of cost is simply part of making society function effectively
in terms of utilization of human resources. Improved health will improve workers' productivity
and the ability of all members of our society to fill their proper functions. Parsons would also
argue that for people to assume the role of being sick, they must legitimately be diagnosed by
doctors and that doctors, and not unauthorized or uncredentialed personnel, should be
authoritative in diagnosis and treatment of illness, rather than, for example, insurance
companies.
A social conflict theory would look closely at how health care is
unevenly apportioned across social classes and racial divides in the United States, and would
see this inequality of access as a fundamental part of conflict between social classes with
limiting of access to health care as a form of racial and class oppression. This theoretical
perspective would also examine the way the self-interest of physicians, pharmaceutical
companies, and insurance companies is involved in the treatment of health care and suggests that
it is important to be vigilant to reveal and contest these interests.
Empirical approaches might study how and why different types of disease and diagnosis
occur in different populations from a demographic and social rather then medical perspective.
For example, it might look at whether autism is more common in boys than girls or whether girls
are systematically underdiagnosed due to gender biases.
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