The following tips are intended only as a supplement to the essay guidelines – these ideas are not prescriptive or exhaustive they are merely suggestions for where you might take your essay however the final decisions rest with you.
- ‘The rural-urban health differential will not be solved simply by improving access to
health services.’ Discuss this statement with reference to recent Australian data and at least one sociological concept or theory.
| Possible epidemiological data items | Possible sociological concepts |
| Geography – how many people live in rural vs urban | Class – Marx Capital – Bourdieu
Social regulation – Durkheim Hegemonic Masculinity – Connell Stigma – Goffman Intersectionality – Collins, Crenshaw |
| Income rural vs urban | |
| Housing rural vs urban | |
| Education | |
| Employment rural vs urban | |
| Access to health services (e.g. hospital beds, nurses, doctors, allied health) | |
| Health indicators – mental health, smoking, obesity, diabetes, accidents/injuries etc | |
| Socioeconomic indexes for areas | |
| Costs of health care provision |
- Old age is a social construction. Discuss this statement and how it relates to health care for people with dementia in Australia. Support your argument with recent Australian data and at least one sociological concept or theory.
| Possible epidemiological data items | Possible sociological concepts |
| Age and gender profile of Australia | Capital – Bourdieu Class – Marx
Intersectionality – Collins, Crenshaw Total institutions – Goffman Discourse – Foucault Medicalisation – Illich Emotional Labour – Arlie Hochschild |
| Aged care beds and utilisation | |
| Aged care services provided in home | |
| Cost of aged care services | |
| Rates of dementia, who, where, how | |
| Trends in data over time, projections | |
| Comparisons by geographical area | |
| Mortality, morbidity |
