ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the sources of sociology's negativism in relation to the study of health and healthcare, and proposes some positive remedies and alternatives. It presents the main causes of sociologists' nugatory contribution in this important sphere first in their obsession with poverty and inequality and second in their irresponsible political allegiance to state power. In the United States, the sociology of health and illness is by a substantial margin the biggest special field. Sociologists have a major contribution to make to progress in the study of health and healthcare by acknowledging and criticizing deficiencies in research design and by rediscovering the commitment of the founding fathers of sociology to scientific analysis of the profound complexities of cause and effect. The lines of positive development are three-fold: rigorous methodological activity in relation to the measurement of sociocultural variables and the design of investigations, active participation in the interdisciplinary work of epidemiology, and honest research into the organization of healthcare provision.
