Biomedicalization Of Alcohol Studies

Biomedicalization is seen as the natural outgrowth of continued scientific progress--a movement towards improving the quality and quantity of life through scientific inquiries using biomedical perspectives and methods. This approach carries with it the assumption that with "proper" risk assessment, detection, and treatment, our lives can be lengthened, improved, and indeed more fulfilling. Yet critics question biomedicalization's ability to deliver. There is concern about how biomedicalization can change our traditional concepts of health as we discover more conditions for which we are at risk, and health maintenance is seen as the responsibility of the individual. The purpose of the book is to describe, assess, and critique biomedicalization and its influence as a larger social trend on the health field and specifically in the area of alcohol research, policy, and programs. Chapter 1 gives a broad overview of biomedicalization. Chapter 2 lays the groundwork for a historical understanding of how medicalization and biomeidcalization have developed and are expressed in diverse fields such as aging, psychiatry/mental health, and women's health. Chapter 3 focuses in-depth on alcoholism and assesses the development and assumptions underlying the two movements that have greatly influenced the substance abuse field: the medicalization of deviance and the growth of the disease model of alcoholism. Chapter 4 discusses the origins and development of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) from its inception in 1970. Chapter 5 illustrates the growing biomedicalization that has occurred in the alcohol field prior to NIAAA's movement to the National Institute of Health (NIH). Chapter 6 assesses how Sweden has handled alcohol problems and currently funds alcohol research. Chapter 7 concludes with a rationale for an expanded discourse between social scientists and biomedical researchers working on social problems, particularly alcohol issues. This volume will stimulate discussion of the processes by which social problems, and specifically alcohol issues, are framed, managed, and studied. It will hold particular interest for researchers and students in the areas of alcohol studies, social science, and social welfare. Lorraine Midanik is a professor in the School of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley.

Social workers represent the largest body of addiction and mental health service providers, and there is a consistent need for up-to-date information. Social Work Practice in the Addictions is a comprehensive evidence-based volume. Contributing authors of this volume have been carefully selected to ensure representation of the leading social work addiction researchers. Additionally, researchers from other allied fields, including psychiatry, psychology, and public health, will also be involved to ensure a strong interdisciplinary perspective. Unlike other texts on addiction, this book incorporates ideas of social justice, practice with diverse communities, and ethics to represent the entire knowledge base of social work.

The development of modern medicine is on a very steep trajectory upward--a rise that began only about a hundred years ago. This rise is certainly quantitative, but it is accompanied by qualitative changes in the way we understand and deliver healthcare. This book begins with a look at three recognized periods of medical development--from 1900 until World War II, from the war until about 1980, and the period since 1980. While the common response is to celebrate these developments, this book suggests that perhaps we should also be wary, especially of the qualitative changes. Since World War II, these medical developments have entered more and more areas of our lives. It is precisely this process of medicalization that should be critically examined. Since 1980 we have medicalized life itself. Drawing from medical sociology, the book examines four characteristics of contemporary Western health care: health as a system, risk as a means of understanding health, health as a commodity, and individual responsibility for health. Critical examination of these four tendencies in contemporary health care forms the core of the argument of this important book about the essence of biohealth and medical practice.

The Handbook of the Sociology of Health, Illness & Healing advances the understanding of medical sociology by identifying the most important contemporary challenges to the field and suggesting directions for future inquiry. The editors provide a blueprint for guiding research and teaching agendas for the first quarter of the 21st century. In a series of essays, this volume offers a systematic view of the critical questions that face our understanding of the role of social forces in health, illness and healing. It also provides an overall theoretical framework and asks medical sociologists to consider the implications of taking on new directions and approaches. Such issues may include the importance of multiple levels of influences, the utility of dynamic, life course approaches, the role of culture, the impact of social networks, the importance of fundamental causes approaches, and the influences of state structures and policy making.

Identifies ethical issues and requirements of genetically-based addiction research, specifies the ethical and public policy implications of applying research.

Publishing Addiction Science is a comprehensive guide for addiction scientists facing the complex process of contributing to scholarly journals. Written by an international group of addiction journal editors and their colleagues, it discusses how to write research articles and systematic reviews, choose a journal, respond to reviewers’ reports, become a reviewer, and resolve the often difficult authorship, ethical and citation issues that arise in addiction science publishing. As a “Guide for the Perplexed,” Publishing Addiction Science helps novice as well as experienced researchers to deal with these challenges. It is suitable for university courses and forms the basis of the training workshops offered by the International Society of Addiction Journal Editors (ISAJE). Co-sponsored by ISAJE and the scientific journal Addiction, the third edition of Publishing Addiction Science gives special attention to the challenges faced by researchers from developing and non-English-speaking countries and features new chapters on guidance for clinician-scientists and the growth of infrastructure and career opportunities in addiction science.

Research increasingly suggests that addiction has a genetic and neurobiological basis, but efforts to translate research into effective clinical treatments and social policy needs to be informed by careful ethical analyses of the personal and social implications. Scientists and policy makers alike must consider possible unintended negative consequences of neuroscience research so that the promise of reducing the burden and incidence of addiction can be fully realized and new advances translated into clinically meaningful and effective treatments. This volume brings together leading addiction researchers and practitioners with neuroethicists and social scientists to specifically discuss the ethical, philosophical, legal and social implications of neuroscience research of addiction, as well as its translation into effective, economical and appropriate policy and treatments. Chapters explore the history of ideas about addiction, the neuroscience of drug use and addiction, prevention and treatment of addiction, the moral implications of addiction neuroscience, legal issues and human rights, research ethics, and public policy. Features outstanding and truly international scholarship, with chapters written by leading experts in neuroscience, addiction medicine, psychology and more Informs psychologists of related research in neuroscience and vice versa, giving researchers easy one-stop access to knowledge outside their area of specialty

Alcohol consumption goes to the very roots of nearly all human societies. Different countries and regions have become associated with different sorts of alcohol, for instance, the “beer culture” of Germany, the “wine culture” of France, Japan and saki, Russia and vodka, the Caribbean and rum, or the “moonshine culture” of Appalachia. Wine is used in religious rituals, and toasts are used to seal business deals or to celebrate marriages and state dinners. However, our relation with alcohol is one of love/hate. We also regulate it and tax it, we pass laws about when and where it’s appropriate, we crack down severely on drunk driving, and the United States and other countries tried the failed “Noble Experiment” of Prohibition. While there are many encyclopedias on alcohol, nearly all approach it as a substance of abuse, taking a clinical, medical perspective (alcohol, alcoholism, and treatment). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Alcohol examines the history of alcohol worldwide and goes beyond the historical lens to examine alcohol as a cultural and social phenomenon, as well—both for good and for ill—from the earliest days of humankind.