Abstract
The publication studies health, disease and health care in cultural and societal contexts. The text is divided into three sections.
In the first part concepts of health and disease have been considered in an interdisciplinary perspective. In the second part the book elaborates the cultural frameworks that determinate our health and sick behaviours, bodily perceptions and stereotypes.
A specific attention focuses on the concept of medicalisation of modern life and modern societies that is the most fundamental contribution of human and social sciences to the reflection of modern medicine. In the final part health care structures/health care systems are presented as primarily value-based institutions.
The book aims above all to rehabilitate issues of health and health car e as soc ial and cultural ssues instead of considering them as purely professional medical agenda beyond the competence of non-medical audience.