Extremely reader friendly and completely up to date, THE SOCIOLOGY OF HEALTH, ILLNESS, AND HEALTH CARE: A CRITICAL APPROACH, 6e delivers a comprehensive, cutting-edge overview and challenges readers to question previously held beliefs about health and illness. Dr. Weitz's thorough discussions of health and medicine emphasize the effects of power and how social forces create illness, affect our ideas about the meaning of illness and disability, structure health care institutions, and impact the work and social position of health care workers. While the text focuses on health within the United States, it also examines global health care issues.