Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0415116473, Paperback)

The Sociology of Health Promotion offers analyses of contemporary public health policy, lifestyle, consumption, risk and health. It also examines socio-political critiques of health promotion and reflects upon their implications for policy and practice. Topics include: the institutional emergence of health promotion at both global and national levels; issues of gender and race in health promotion; accidents and the risk of society; smoking; HIV and AIDS; aging; and the body and health related consumption. A key theme of the collection is that health promotion is emblematic of wider socio-cultural changes such as the demise of institutional forms of welfare and social control, a blurring of "expert" and lay knowledge, a heightened collective perception of uncontainable risks, and a shift to a consumer rather than a producer driven economy.