Sociology of health - Essay Example

Best evidence is Egolf team’s (1992) 50-year comparative study of mortality rates between an Italian-American town in eastern Pennsylvania called Roseto and its adjacent town called Bangor. This study strongly indicates that ‘a’ could be a protection against heart attack and early death. At a time when Roseto had greater social solidarity and homogeneity, its mortality rate from myocardial infraction was lower from that of Bangor. But as Roseto adopted Bangor’s American way of living, its myocardial infraction and mortality rate had raised sharply, involving primarily younger men (aged 25-35) and elderly women.

Hence, the term ‘Roseto Effect’ has come to mean as the positive effects of Q#1a on longevity. The study of Cohen et al. (1997) has revealed that ‘a’ strengthens immunity against common colds. This controlled study involving healthy men (125) and women (151) from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania discovered that those who have more types of social relationships, such as spouse, parents, parents-in-law, children, other close family members, close neighbors, friends, workmates, schoolmates, fellow volunteers in charity or community work, members of groups without religious affiliations (e.g., social, recreational, or professional), and members of religious groups are found less vulnerable to rhino-virus-induced colds.

In another study, Goodwin et al.’s (2001) multicenter random trial further validated earlier studies (Spiegel et al., 1989, Cunningham et al., 1998, & Edelman et al., 1999, as cited in Goodwin et al., 2001, p.1724) on the psychosocial positive effect of ‘a’ through supportive-expressive group therapy. It was found that ‘a’ can improve the mood and perception to pain, particularly in more distressed women with metastatic breast cancer with only three months to live. The positive effect of Q#1a on