Dedication.- Acknowledgements.- Thinking Sociologically about Health and Healthcare.- PART I: SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON HEALTH AND HEALTHCARE Introduction; The Political Economy of Health and Health Care; Ellen Annandale; The Medicalisation of Reproduction; Pamela Abbott, Claire Wallace and Melissa Tyler; The Social Role of Medicine; David Armstrong; The Sociological Construction of Medicine; Paul Atkinson; The Sociological Imagination; Charles Wright Mills.- PART II: MAKING SENSE OF HEALTH Introduction; Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches; Keith F. Punch; Historical Data for Health Inequalities;Sara Mallinson, Jennie Popay, Eva Elliot, Sharon Bennett, Lisa Bostock, Anthony Gatrell, Carol Thomas and Gareth Williams; Practice-based Evidence; Nick J. Fox; 'Traditional' and 'Emancipatory' Research; Beth Humphries; Women Respondents in Health Research; Helen Roberts; Ethics and Ethics Committees; Carole Truman.- PART III: INEQUALITIES AND DIVERSITY IN HEALTH Introduction; The Politics of Victim Blaming; Robert Crawford; The Determinants of Geographical Inequalities in Health; Heather Joshi, Richard D. Wiggins, Mel Bartley, Richard Mitchell, Simon Gleave and Kevin Lynch; Children Reflecting on Health; Kathryn Backett-Milburn, Sarah Cunningham-Burley and John Davis; Gender and Women's Health; Lesley Doyal; Measuring and Understanding Ethnic Inequalities in Health; Mel Bartley.- PART IV: BODIES, MINDS AND EMOTIONS Introduction; The Body, Medicine and Death; Deborah Lupton; 'Enhancing' the Body; Peter Conrad and Heather T. Jacobson; Humour and Illness; Alison Chapple and Sue Ziebland; Anorexia as Disability; Stephanie Tierney; 'Dirty Work'; Ian Shaw; Emotion Work in Midwifery; Billie Hunter.- PART V: POWER, PROFESSIONS AND PRACTICE Introduction; The Characteristics of a Profession; Eliot Friedson; The Professionalisation of Complementary and Alternative Medicine; Merrijoy Kelner, Beverly Wellman, Heather Boon and Sandy Welsh; The Feminisation of Dentistry; Tracey L. Adams; Occupational Boundaries in the Operating Theatre; Stephen Timmons and Judith Tanner; Choosing to be Childfree; Annily Campbell; The Internet and the Doctor-Patient Relationship; Alex Broom.