Health Care as a Social Problem - What is health? - What is illness? - Life expectancy - An estimate of the average lifetime of people born in a specific year - Infant mortality rate - Number of deaths of infants under one year of age per 1,000 live births each year Acute and Chronic Diseases and Disability - Acute diseases are illnesses - Strike suddenly and cause dramatic incapacitation and sometimes death - Chronic diseases - Illnesses that are long term or lifelong and that develop gradually or are present From birth - Disability - Restricted or total lack of ability to perform certain activities because of physical Limitations or the interplay of these limitations, social responses, and the social Environment The HIV/AIDSS Crisis: A case Study of an Epidemic - AIDS – acquired immunodeficiency syndrome – had reached crisis proportions in the United States and other nations - AIDS is caused by infection with a virus called human immunodeficiency virus, which is Passed from one person to another through blood-to-blood and sexual contact. - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that in 2015, about 40,000 People were newly diagnosed with HIV, and 18,303 were diagnosed with AIDS. Mental Illness as a Social Problem - Mental disorder – a condition that makes it difficult or impossible for a person to cope with Everyday life - Mental illness – a condition that requires extensive treatment with medications, Psychotherapy, and sometimes hospitalization - Deinstitutionalization is the practice of discharging patients from mental hospitals into the Community - Total institution – a place where people are isolated from the rest of society for aa period Of time and come under the complete control of the officials who run the institution - Race, Class, Gender, and Mental Disorders Paying for Health Care in the United States - The Affordable Care Act - Health care organization, rising costs, and unequal access - Provide health insurance - Health maintenance organization provides, for aa fixed monthly fee, total health care with An emphasis on prevention to avoid costly treatment later.