Spotlight on Age: An Overlooked Construct in Medical Sociology

Abstract

Medical sociology gives limited attention to age—a surprising observation given the aging of the population and the fact that age is among the strongest determinants of health. We examine this issue through an analysis of articles published in Journal of Health and Social Behavior ( JHSB) and Sociology of Health & Illness ( SHI) between 2000 and 2019. One in 10 articles focused on age or aging, with attention increasing over the period. However, the journals differed. More JHSB than SHI articles addressed it, but fewer focused on the latest life stages when frailty often appears. We discuss three dimensions of age that would enrich medical sociology: as a dimension of inequality akin to race and gender with similar health effects, as an institution interacting with the medical one, and as an identity—again, akin to race and gender—through which people process their experiences in ways that affect health.

Centering Age Inequality: Developing a Sociology-of-Age Framework

“…They found that only 7% of the articles in the social psychology journals and 11% of those in American Sociological Review attended seriously to age. A similar conclusion was drawn from an analysis of articles published between 2000 and 2019 in the two leading medical sociology journals, which revealed that only approximately 12% focused on age/agingan especially low percentage considering that age is a primary determinant of health (Barrett & Michael 2022).…”

“…Although the reasons may be open to debate, the discipline's limited attention to age is a conclusion supported by the handful of content analyses addressing the issue (Barrett & Michael 2022, Barrett et al 2012. Barrett et al (2012) examined the extent to which articles published in social psychology journals between 1977 and 2006 attended to age/aging, broadly defined to include age, aging, or the life course, and compared them with those in sociology journals, including American Sociological Review.…”

“…This imprint is evidenced by its inclusion in the name of the only American Sociological Association (ASA) section related to age (other than Childhood and Youth Studies)-the Section on Aging and the Life Course. Further evidence is found in content analyses revealing that sociology's attention to the broad theme of age, aging, or the life course is, in fact, a focus on life course principles (Barrett & Michael 2022, Barrett et al 2012. Both studies revealed that the most common approach was to examine some given process occurring over the life course, with scant attention to other dimensions of age, including age discrimination, ageism, or age identity.…”