Healthy Skepticism Library item: 4382
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: Journal Article
Montagne M.
The promotion of medications for personal and social problems
Journal of Drug Issues 1992; 22:389-405
Abstract:
The issue of promoting medications for personal and social problems involves a difficult balance between medical definitions of what constitutes a disease and consumers’ perceptions of what they want or need in the way of optimal health and well-being. There are certain symptom states and conditions that are poorly defined in terms of the biomedical model of disease. Other conditions, such as child abuse, ordinary stress and tension (“pressures of lifeâ€), small breasts, thinning hair, mental fatigue, and certain personal and social problems of life are often considered diseases by some (e.g., afflicted consumers, health product manufacturers and promoters), but not by others (e.g., health professionals, health insurance companies). The key concern is who determines what conditions are diseases to be addressed by medical care systems and public health efforts, and what conditions are problems and concerns better addressed by the family unit, social welfare agencies, religious groups, or society in general.
Keywords:
*nonsystematic review/social history/social control/images in ads/medicalization of problems/images in ads/women/direct-to-consumer advertising/over-the-counter medications/ideology/IMAGES IN PROMOTION: WOMEN/INFLUENCE OF PROMOTION: CONSUMERS AND PATIENTS/INFLUENCE OF PROMOTION: MEDICALIZATION OF PROBLEMS/PROMOTION AND HEALTH NEEDS: PROMOTION IN DEVELOPED COUNTRIES/PROMOTION AND HEALTH NEEDS: SOCIAL HISTORY
