Medical sociology

Medical sociology refers to the study of individual and group behaviors with respect to health and illness. In this regard, "medical" is a bit of a misnomer, because the focus is not on medical professionals or their behaviors, but on human behavioral responses to health and illness, which overlaps with the domain of nursing more than that of medicine. (See 1995 American Nurses Association: Nursing's Social Policy Statement.) Medical sociology is concerned with individual and group responses directed toward assessing well-being, maintaining health, acting upon illness (whether real or perceived), interacting with health care systems, and maximizing health in the face of physiologic or functional derangement.