Please answer any 2 of the following questions based on the readings and presentations this week.

1. Explain the Whitehall Study in detail. What is the significance of this study? What are the criticisms of this study?

2. In order to illustrate the social construction of illness, choose a specific "disease" and trace how it's been approached historically. Then discuss how the same illness is approached in the present. For example, the history of alcoholism shows a view that changes from concerns of morality and self-control to one of chemical addiction based on genetic tendencies. Other possibilities include schizophrenia, ADHD, depression, etc.

3. Pick any one of the videos posted in this unit.... either 'Sick Around America,' or 'Sick Around the World,' or 'Health Literacy and Patient Safety'. Write an explanatory summary on what you have learnt from watching the video and how it will help you in your profession?

('Sick Around USA' and 'Sick Around the World' are very informative but are both 55 minutes each. Once you go to the site, click on 'watch full video' to play. These 2 videos provide a wonderful macro view of how several social institutions within each country interact with one another in creating the system that people live in).

4. Explain what are some of the technological advancements of diagnosis and treatments before birth and benefits there of? What are a few moral issues stemming from this technology?

5. A student gets very sick the day before an exam and (thanks to a doctor's note) is allowed to take the test at a later date due to being bed-ridden. First describe Talcott Parson's "sick role" and then explain how the sick role provides the above student with rights and obligations.  Would the sick role provide the same results if we were talking about employment rather than being a student? Lastly, how might low SES (Socio-economic status) alter the ability to follow the role?