Illness is more than just biological – medical sociology shows how social factors get under the skin and cause disease

Medical sociology examines how social, cultural, political and economic factors shape health in ways that medicine alone cannot treat.

By: Jennifer Singh, Georgia Institute of Technology, The Conversation

Outlets: The Conversation

Published: January 8, 2026

Words: 1,226

Last Updated: 1 day, 7 hours ago

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By Jennifer Singh, Georgia Institute of Technology

Health and medicine is more than just biological – societal forces can get under your skin and cause illness. Medical sociologists like me study these forces by treating society itself as our laboratory. Health and illness are our experiments in uncovering meaning, power and inequality, and how it affects all parts of a person’s life.

For example, why do low-income communities continue to have higher …

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