contested illness

Definition of Contested Illness

(noun) An illness that is questioned or disputed by members of the medical field.

Examples of Contested Illness

• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)
• Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS)

Contested Illness Pronunciation

Pronunciation Usage Guide

Syllabification: con·test·ed ill·ness

Audio Pronunciation

International Phonetic Alphabet

• American English – /kənˈtɛstəd ˈɪlnəs/
• British English – /kənˈtɛstɪd ˈɪlnɪs/

Usage Note

• Plural: contested illnesses
  

Additional Information

• Medical Sociology Resources – Books, Journals, and Helpful Links
• Word origin of “contest” and “illness” – Online Etymology Dictionary: etymonline.com
• Acemoglu, Daron, and Joshua D. Angrist. 2001. “Consequences of Employment Protection? The Case of the Americans with Disabilities Act.” Journal of Political Economy 109(5):915–57. doi:10.1086/322836.
• Barker, Kristin K. 2011. “Listening to Lyrica: Contested Illnesses and Pharmaceutical Determinism.” Social Science and Medicine 73(6):833–42. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.05.055.
• Barnes, Colin, and Geof Mercer. 2010. Exploring Disability: A Sociological Introduction. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Polity.
• Brown, Phil. 1995. “‘Naming and Framing:’ The Social Construction of Diagnosis and Illness.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 36(Extra Issue):34–52. doi:10.2307/2626956.
• Brown, Phil. 2007. Toxic Exposures: Contested Illnesses and the Environmental Health Movement. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Brown, Phil, Rachel Morello-Frosch, and Stephen Zavestoski. 2012. Contested Illnesses: Citizens, Science, and Health Social Movements. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• Cable, Sherry, Thomas E. Shriver, and Tamara L. Mix. 2008. “Risk Society and Contested Illness: The Case of Nuclear Weapons Workers.” American Sociological Review 73(3):380–401. doi:10.1177/000312240807300302.
• Dumit, Joseph. 2006. “Illness You Have to Fight to Get: Facts and Forces in Uncertain, Emergent Illnesses.” Social Science and Medicine 62(3):577–90. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2005.06.018.
• Ehrenreich, Barbara, and Deirdre English. 1989. For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts’ Advice to Women. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
• Eisenberg, Leon. 1977. “Disease and Illness: Distinctions between Professional and Popular Ideas of Sickness.” Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 1(1):9–23. doi:10.1007/bf00114808.
• Foucault, Michel. 1973. The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception. New York: Vintage.
• Hardey, Michael. 1999. “Doctor in the House: The Internet as a Source of Lay Health Knowledge and the Challenge to Expertise.” Sociology of Health and Illness 21(6):820–35. doi:10.1111/1467-9566.00185.
• Kroll-Smith, Steve, and Hugh H. Floyd. 1997. Bodies in Protest: Environmental Illness and the Struggle over Medical Knowledge. New York: New York University Press.
• Swoboda, Debra. 2008. “The Social Construction of Contested Illness Legitimacy: A Grounded Theory Analysis.” Qualitative Research in Psychology 3(3):233–51. doi:10.1191/1478088706qrp061oa.
• Teghtsoonian, Katherine Anne, and Pamela Moss. 2008. Contesting Illness: Process and Practices. Toronto, OT: University of Toronto Press.
• Zola, Irving Kenneth. 1972. “Medicine as an Institution of Social Control.” Sociological Review 20(4):487–504. doi:10.1111/j.1467-954x.1972.tb00220.x.
• Contested Illnesses Research Group – Brown University: www.brown.edu

Related Terms

• acute disease
• cancer cluster
• chronic disease
• deficiency disease
• disease
• endemic disease
• epidemiology
• health
• infectious disease
• medical sociology
• medicalization

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Works Consulted

Griffiths, Heather, Nathan Keirns, Eric Strayer, Susan Cody-Rydzewski, Gail Scaramuzzo, Tommy Sadler, Sally Vyain, Jeff Bry, Faye Jones. 2016. Introduction to Sociology 2e. Houston, TX: OpenStax.

Oxford University Press. (N.d.) Oxford Dictionaries. (https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/).

Princeton University. 2010. WordNet. (https://wordnet.princeton.edu/).

Wikipedia contributors. (N.d.) Wiktionary, The Free Dictionary. Wikimedia Foundation. (http://en.wiktionary.org).

Cite the Definition of Contested Illness

ASA – American Sociological Association (5th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “contested illness.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Retrieved October 15, 2024 (https://sociologydictionary.org/contested-illness/).

APA – American Psychological Association (6th edition)

contested illness. (2013). In K. Bell (Ed.), Open education sociology dictionary. Retrieved from https://sociologydictionary.org/contested-illness/

Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date – Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “contested illness.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Accessed October 15, 2024. https://sociologydictionary.org/contested-illness/.

MLA – Modern Language Association (7th edition)

“contested illness.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Ed. Kenton Bell. 2013. Web. 15 Oct. 2024. <https://sociologydictionary.org/contested-illness/>.