Occupation & Disease – How Social Factors Affect the Conception of Work–Related Disorders - Hardcover

Dembe, Allard E

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300064365 ISBN 13: 9780300064360

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1996

Synopsis

Focussing on the histories of three ailments -- cumulative trauma disorders (especially carpal tunnel syndrome), occupational back pain, and noise-induced hearing loss -- this book provides "a fascinating account of how physicians and society come to recognize emerging diseases. Beautifully illustrated with splendid historical examples." -- Philip J. Landrigan, M.D., Mount Sinai School of Medicine "A major contribution to the historical sociology of industrial illness." -- Roy Porter, Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine

About this title

About the Author

Allard E. Dembe is assistant professor in the Occupational Health Program of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and deputy director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation National Program Office for Workers' Compensation Health Initiative. He is also an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Work Environment at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

From the Back Cover

According to Dembe, physicians may be influenced by such social factors as: the advent of new technologies (computers replacing typewriters, for example); passage of laws establishing workers' compensation; union campaigns and labor activism; public outcry against environmental hazards; cultural stereotyping (some complaints of hearing loss, for example have been linked to ""nervous tendencies"" of women); medical specialization and competition (diagnosis of back pain as a traumatic injury corresponded with the growth of orthopedics after World War I); and media attention.

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300064365
• ISBN 13: 9780300064360
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 358