IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v180y2017icp45-51.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Stability and change in disease prestige: A comparative analysis of three surveys spanning a quarter of a century

Author

Listed:
  • Album, Dag
  • Johannessen, Lars E.F.
  • Rasmussen, Erik B.

Abstract

In this paper, we present a comparative analysis of three survey studies of disease prestige in medical culture. The studies were conducted in 1990, 2002 and 2014 using the same research design. In each of the three rounds, a sample of Norwegian physicians was asked to rate a set of 38 diseases on a scale from 1 to 9 according to the prestige they believed health personnel in general would award them. The results show a remarkable stability in the prestige rank order over 25 years. The top three diseases in all three surveys were leukaemia, brain tumour and myocardial infarction. The four lowest ranked were fibromyalgia, depressive neurosis, anxiety neurosis and hepatocirrhosis. The most notable change concerns apoplexy (brain stroke), which moved from a rank of 33 to 29 and then to 23 over the three rounds. We argue that the stable pattern, as well as this change, substantiate the interpretation of previous research, i.e. that the prestige of a disease is affected by the localization of the affected organ or body part, the effect and style of its typical treatment, and the social attributes of the typical patient. Analysing physicians’ shared evaluations of different diseases, the paper contributes to the cultural understanding of disease conceptions in medicine. Understanding these conceptions is important because disease prestige may influence decision-making in the healthcare sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Album, Dag & Johannessen, Lars E.F. & Rasmussen, Erik B., 2017. "Stability and change in disease prestige: A comparative analysis of three surveys spanning a quarter of a century," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 45-51.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:180:y:2017:i:c:p:45-51
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.03.020
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953617301661
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.03.020?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Creed, Peter A. & Searle, Judy & Rogers, Mary E., 2010. "Medical specialty prestige and lifestyle preferences for medical students," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(6), pages 1084-1088, September.
    2. Johannessen, Lars E.F., 2014. "The narrative (re)production of prestige: How neurosurgeons teach medical students to valorise diseases," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 85-91.
    3. Grue, Jan & Johannessen, Lars E.F. & Rasmussen, Erik Fossan, 2015. "Prestige rankings of chronic diseases and disabilities. A survey among professionals in the disability field," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 180-186.
    4. Album, Dag & Westin, Steinar, 2008. "Do diseases have a prestige hierarchy? A survey among physicians and medical students," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 182-188, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hofmann, Bjørn, 2020. "Biases distorting priority setting," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(1), pages 52-60.
    2. Kristin Margrethe Heggen & Henrik Berg, 2021. "Epistemic injustice in the age of evidence-based practice: The case of fibromyalgia," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-6, December.
    3. Rasmussen, Erik Børve, 2020. "Rhetorical work and medical authority: Constructing convincing cases in insurance medicine," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Johannessen, Lars E.F., 2014. "The narrative (re)production of prestige: How neurosurgeons teach medical students to valorise diseases," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 85-91.
    2. Elaine Kelly & Isabel Stockton, 2024. "A senior doctor like me: Gender match and occupational choice," IFS Working Papers W24/11, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    3. Rodriguez, Jenny K. & Procter, Stephen & Perez Arrau, Gregorio, 2023. "Reconfigured professional purpose in times of crisis: Experiences of frontline healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 329(C).
    4. Malik, Tariq H., 2019. "Society-nature-technology (SNT) nexus: Institutional causes and cures of national morbidities," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 491-503.
    5. Heikkilä, Teppo Juhani & Hyppölä, Harri & Aine, Tiina & Halila, Hannu & Vänskä, Jukka & Kujala, Santero & Virjo, Irma & Mattila, Kari, 2014. "How do doctors choose where they want to work? – Motives for choice of current workplace among physicians registered in Finland 1977–2006," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 109-117.
    6. Grue, Jan & Johannessen, Lars E.F. & Rasmussen, Erik Fossan, 2015. "Prestige rankings of chronic diseases and disabilities. A survey among professionals in the disability field," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 180-186.
    7. Brendan McCormack & Astrid Skatvedt, 2017. "Older people and their care partners’ experiences of living with mental health needs: a focus on collaboration and cooperation," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(1-2), pages 103-114, January.
    8. Creed, Peter A. & Searle, Judy & Rogers, Mary E., 2010. "Medical specialty prestige and lifestyle preferences for medical students," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(6), pages 1084-1088, September.
    9. Hofmann, Bjørn, 2020. "Biases distorting priority setting," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(1), pages 52-60.
    10. Battalova, Alfiya & Hurd, Laura & Hobson, Sandra & Kirby, R. Lee & Emery, Richelle & Mortenson, W. Ben, 2022. "“Dirty looks”: A critical phenomenology of motorized mobility scooter use," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 297(C).
    11. Ashley, Louise & McDonald, Ian, 2024. "When the Penny Drops: Understanding how social class influences speciality careers in the UK medical profession," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 348(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:180:y:2017:i:c:p:45-51. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.