Revisionist or simply wrong? A response to Armstrong's article on chronic illness

Bibliographic Data

ID11635275
AuthorsChris Gilleard (0000-0001-5005-0450, Division of Psychiatry UCL Medical School London), Paul Higgs (0000-0002-3564-2797, Division of Psychiatry UCL Medical School London)
Year2014
Volume36
Issue7
Pages1111-1115
Publication date2014-08-26
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociology of Health & Illness (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0141-9889 • E-ISSN: 1467-9566
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1467-9566.12181
PMID25155775
PMCIDPMC4255747
OpenAlexW1968150900
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited16

This article is a response to David Armstrong's recent, revisionist account of the epidemiological transition which he claims replaced earlier discourses of ageing with new discourses of chronic disease. We argue (i) that he misrepresents a key element in Omran's account of the epidemiological transition, namely the decline in infant, child and maternal mortality; (ii) that he fails to acknowledge debates going back centuries in Western medicine over the distinctions between natural and accidental death and between endogenous and extrinsic causes of ageing and (iii) that he misrepresents the growth of medical interest in the everyday illnesses of old age over the course of the 20th century as a discourse of suppression rather than a process of inclusion. While we would acknowledge that the chronic illnesses of today are different from those of the past, this amounts to something more than the changing semantics of senility

Accidental · Criminology · Epidemiological transition · Inclusion (mineral · Sociology · Aging and Gerontology Research · Epidemiology · Gender Studies · Historical and modern epidemiology studies · History · Medicine · Obesity and Health Practices