Category: Sociology of Health & Illness

Discussing the ‘obsession’ with childhood disorder labelling

In recent decades, we have too often passed the buck of social problems to children who lack the power to say no to stigmatizing psychiatric labels. Laura Batstra and Ernst Thoutenhoofd call for reflection on these non-evidence-based, ineffective and sometimes even harmful practices. The instability of labels Recently, a well-designed cohort study reported that nearly 40% of 213 toddlers classified with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) no longer met the criteria for ASD at the age of 5-7 years. ‘Recovery’...

You are what you swallow? Considering the moral implications of psychiatric diagnosis for children

It’s not easy to question things that have been life changing for some people. As more and more people seek or receive psychiatric diagnosis, it becomes a very personal thing to question its validity. When I wrote an opinion piece in 2023 suggesting moral implications associated with increasing psychiatric diagnosis of children, I felt nervous. Nervous of invalidating the experiences of others but also nervous of the implications of questioning medical hegemony without undermining the hard fought for systems of...

Can young children give or withhold consent to heart surgery? Obstacles to innovative research

When we began to research children’s consent to non-urgent heart surgery in 2019, we were surprised by the healthcare professionals’ enthusiasm for consent with the right to refuse. In the first of our 45 interviews with practitioners and related experts, an anaesthetist said: “As a group, we would like to be the best in the world at doing some kind of evidence-based consent that is great for patients and legally robust.  We’re aiming to be amazing at it…Definitely some four-year-olds...

How to make sense of the debate on “study drugs”?

“Medicalization“ as a theoretical concept has received much attention in sociology throughout decades and people’s drug use is a social phenomenon investigated from different perspectives in the social and life sciences. Research on “study drugs” is an area where many of these perspectives converge – not only because it prompts us to reconsider the treatment/enhancement distinction. In this article, Stephan Schleim describes how the topic of (allegedly) performance-enhancing drugs has fascinated him since high school. When scholars started discussing this...

Classroom babies more at risk for ADHD

Max and Julian are starting kindergarten this year and they are very looking forward their entrance at elementary school. Max will be turning 5-year-old on September 12th and Julian will be 6 on October 12th. They have one year apart, but they have so much fun together, they are delighted to be in the same classroom! This one-year gap between children in a same classroom is common. To determine when a child should enter school, his/her birthdate is compared with...

What is Medical AI Good For?

The use of artificial intelligence has grown rapidly, especially in the field of medicine, with the promise of offering advances ranging from more efficient diagnoses to safer treatments. Yet, this promise overlooks the fact that artificial intelligence still faces some pretty serious limitations, you know, the kind of limitations that prevent the machine from operating like we see in television and movies. Simply stated, artificial intelligence is still not yet that intelligent. Yes, artificial intelligence can do well at particular...

What’s Sociological About Self-Injury?

Sam was 12 when she began cutting herself.[i] She had been grounded by her parents after she pierced her ears without their permission. ‘I don’t know if it was revenge’ she explains, ‘[but] I felt like “you’re not letting me be who I want to be. I’m an individual, I should be able to do what I want to do.” You know? . . . I felt so upset that no one was listening to me.’ Her frustration led her...

The State and My Happiness: Youth Mental Health, Citizenship Education, and Discursive Contestations in Contemporary Indonesia

In 2015 we all sighed a sigh of relief when mental health was eventually included in the Sustainable Development Goals – Goal 3 to be precise. Conveniently, the World Health Organisation also offered a concise definition: The World Health Organization (WHO) defines mental health as ‘a state of well-being in which the individual realizes their own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or...

The Psychiatrization of Society: Why we should care

Some years ago, I started my residency as a psychiatrist in a hospital close to Berlin. I was prepared for my job also to encompass meeting people who were not very pleased about meeting me. As one of the downsides of my career choice, I expected to inevitably become a part of the disciplinary institution that Foucault and others had famously described (Foucault 1965; Goffman 1961; Szasz 1974), being obliged to play a main role in cases of compulsory treatment...

Researchers should do more to bring their findings to society: the case of ADHD-medication

In 2020, I co-authored a paper with one of my PhD students, entitled A prescription trend analysis of methylphenidate: relation to study reports on efficacy. In this study by Maruschka Sluiter and colleagues, the prescription-rate of ADHD pills in the Netherlands was analyzed in relation to newly published evidence regarding the lack of their efficacy. We showed that several negative study reports from 2007 onwards did not lead to significant reduction in the rate of methylphenidate (MPH) prescriptions. The data...

The Cost of Pollutants: Environmental Hazards, Racial Residential Segregation, and Health

Racial disparities in health are undoubtedly one of the most significant public health issues of our time. According to the National Institute of Health, racial and ethnic minorities suffer from a higher incidence of a wide range of negative health outcomes than Whites, such as preterm births, obesity, heart disease, and cancer. COVID-19 has been no exception, with people of color being disproportionally affected by the pandemic both in terms of infection rates and deaths. Studies have shown that these...

Race and Racism in the NHS

I was privileged to host a conversation with Tarek Younis and Andrew Smart as part of the BSA Medical Sociology Group virtual event on 10th September 2020, about their papers, published in Sociology of Health and Illness, and included in the journal’s virtual collection of papers on race and ethnicity. The collection and the conversation at the conference were inspired by recent calls for racial justice, provoked in part by the killing of George Floyd, just one of too many...

Is ADHD diagnosis flawed? Younger children in a school year group are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD globally

In 2019, I was the lead author of a paper titled Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder late birthdate effect common in both high and low prescribing international jurisdictions: a systematic review. We reviewed 22 studies from 13 countries covering over 15 million children, and found that it is normal for the youngest children in a school-year-group to be diagnosed with and ‘medicated’ for ADHD at a much higher rate than their older classmates. This ADHD late birthdate effect was typically strongest...

Populism, policy and pandemics

Across the globe there has been an upswing in populist right wing political parties in the past decade. This raises a number of particular challenges for the provision of health and social care. For example, witness the cross-country disparities in excess mortalities linked to COVID-19. If we look at countries with right wing populist leaders (e.g. USA, Brazil) compared to other countries (e.g. New Zealand). Much of this difference can be accounted for by the populist rejection of expertise and...

Lonely patients’ ambivalent engagements with digital media

Feeling isolated or lonely is common among chronically ill people. They may suffer severe pain, have limited mobility, and/or experience stigmatisation—depending on the nature of their condition. Consequently, many will turn to digital technologies to make connections with others. In a recent Australian study on patients’ use of digital media, my colleagues and I found that our respondents often spontaneously mentioned during their interviews that they felt isolated or lonely and that the internet and social media provided valuable tools...