ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on reviewing the social factors influencing help-seeking by the ill. It reviews the illness-as-deviance perspective and examines self-care. The chapter discusses influence of social networks on help-seeking, followed by a review of selected sociodemographic variables, including health insurance coverage. It also discusses the sick role that people assume in society when diagnosed with an illness and the trend in society toward medicalization. The medical view of illness is that of deviance from a biological norm of health and feelings of well-being. The basis for describing illness as a form of deviant behavior lies in the sociological definition of deviance as any act or behavior that violates the social norms within a given social system. The medical profession has been successful in gaining authority to define aberrant behaviors and even naturally occurring physical conditions such as aging as illness—as problems best handled by a physician.
