What Is the Sociology behind Health Status and Health-seeking Behaviour?

Health status and health-seeking behaviour are commonly studied in the context of human development and public health. Numerous studies measuring health status and the utilisation of health services are conducted, and a considerable amount of statistical correlations and analyses have been generated. These are valuable baselines but are often accepted as given and immutable. What could be a sociological approach to numerical data? The aim of this article is to show that sociological writings on health should go beyond the definitions and terms used in statistical databases and place them in the context of social life of the people whose health status is under study. The social dynamics in the everyday life of people, the imperatives on their decisions under lived conditions and their cultural predispositions will be important to the understanding of their health status, whether or not they are statistically significant. Qualitative and micro enquiries are required to correct, complement and explain the issues raised by numerical data.