Social Patterns of Illness and Medical Care

In a population survey of illness behavior, the form of social organization with nwhich an individual was associated was found to be highly related to his medical orientation with cosmopolitan types of groups being more likely to hold a scientific health orienitation while parochial groups adhered to popular health orientation. This relationship existed independent of demographic characteristics or medical status. In turn, demographic characteristics were found to be related to both health status and source of medical care, although these latter two variables were not strongly related either to form of social organization or medical orientation. A framework is proposed which views medical orientation and responses as intervening variables between social structure and medical care. The implications of these findings for public health and medicine and for social action in general ar e discussed.