Sociology of health & illness
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Serodiscordant couples are often understood through a discourse of HIV-risk or researched in terms of the psychological stressors they face. However, due to antiretroviral treatments people living with HIV can achieve undetectable viral loads, which not only make them non-infectious to partners, but allow them to think of their lives and relationships as safe and viable. ⋯ Utilising semi-structured interviews with 21 gay men in serodiscordant relationships in Sydney, Australia, we draw on the concept of 'home' life to explore how men engage with discourses of normalisation to describe and enact their relationships. We argue that although HIV is managed well enough to be insignificant in the context of home life, experiences or anticipation of stigma in public often remind couples that they are yet to be considered 'normal' socially.
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In 2015, the UK government made its counter-radicalisation policy a statutory duty for all National Health Service (NHS) staff. Staff are now tasked to identify and report individuals they suspect may be vulnerable to radicalisation. ⋯ This article demonstrates how Prevent engages in performative colour-blindness - the active recognition and dismissal of the race frame which associates racialised Muslims with the threat of terrorism. It concludes with a discussion of institutional racism in the NHS - how racialised policies like Prevent impact the minutia of clinical interactions; how the pretence of a 'post-racial' society obscures institutional racism; how psychologisation is integral to the performance of colour-blindness; and why it is difficult to address the racism associated with colourblind policies which purport to address the threat of the Far-Right.
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In this article we use the example of race/ethnic inequalities in severe mental illness to demonstrate the utility of a novel integrative approach to theorising the role of racism in generating inequality. Ethnic minority people in the UK are at much greater risk than White British people of being diagnosed with a severe - psychosis related - mental illness, and this is particularly the case for those with Black Caribbean or Black African origins. ⋯ We argue that this provides a conceptually robust and thorough analysis of the role of inter-related dimensions of racism in shaping risks of severe mental illness, access to care, and policy and practice responses. This analysis carries implications for a broader, but integrated, understanding of the fundamental drives of race/ethnic inequalities in health and for an anti-racism public health agenda.
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The use of e-cigarettes is increasing, a practice denoted as vaping. We explore user motives, self-identity as vapers and involvement in vaping subcultures, drawing on sociological theory of stigma, subcultures and symbolic boundaries. Based on analyses of semi-structured interviews with 30 Norwegian vapers, we find that there is a vaping subculture in Norway. ⋯ Vaping was often symbolically linked to the stigmatised smoker identity they wanted to escape, and was restricted to private contexts. The perceived symbolic meaning of e-cigarettes varies: for some, they are a symbol of pleasure and community. For others, they connote the stigmatised status of the addicted smoker seeking an alternative to cigarettes.
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The prescribing of high-cost cancer medicines at the end of life has become a focus of criticism, due primarily to concerns about the safety, efficacy and cost-effectiveness of these medicines in this clinical context. In response to these concerns, a number of interventions have been proposed - frequently focused on improving physician-patient communication at the end of life. ⋯ Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 16 Australian oncologists and haematologists, we demonstrate that these physicians believe that the use of high-cost medicines at the end of life is driven by multiple factors - including individual, interpersonal, socio-cultural and public policy influences. We conclude that these factors, and their interactions, need to be taken into account in the development of public policy and clinical interventions to address the use of high-cost medicines at the end of life.