Sociology of health & illness

People living with endometriosis, a disease in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows elsewhere in the body, often experience prolonged diagnostic journeys because of symptom variability, normalisation of period pain and oth…

Digital health technologies increasingly promise to alleviate the burden of chronic illness work by automating aspects of care. Rather than demanding constant self-monitoring, automated devices claim to deliver therapy with minimal involvem…

For many living with chronic illness, COVID-19 is a compounding health crisis. Although a few studies have focused on the experiences of those living with chronic illness, this is the first to prioritise the voices of women living with chro…

Multimorbidity, meaning multiple long-term conditions impacting a person's health, has become a rising societal and public health issue. The article contributes to the sociological study of chronic illness and multimorbidity by analysing ho…

Young adults living with chronic illness often experience considerable uncertainty across the emotional, cultural and medical spheres of their everyday lives. The process of seeking, receiving and reckoning with a diagnosis has frequently b…

This article focuses on the workplace as a significant site of convergence between the disciplines of medical sociology and disability studies. As disability remains on the margins of sociological exploration and theorising relating to heal…

Fertility awareness apps, which help to identify the 'fertile window' when conception is most likely, have been hailed as 'revolutionising' women's reproductive health. Despite rapidly growing popularity, little research has explored how pe…

Currently dominant in medical discourse, the concept of self-management sees the responsibility for health and illness shift from the state to the individual. However, while this emphasis on individual responsibility and management has burg…

Only some individuals who have the medically defined condition 'infertility' adopt a self-definition as having a fertility problem, which has implications for social and behavioural responses, yet there is no clear consensus on why some peo…

The concept of biographical disruption has been widely applied in sociological explorations of chronic illness and has been subject to much theoretical scrutiny, reflection and development. However, little attention has been given to the im…

This paper contributes to the literature on patients' claims-making work by analysing the epistemological strategies and standards used by members of an endometriosis patient community. It draws upon focus group research with members of a s…