medicalize

Medicalization is the process by which non-medical problems are defined and treated as medical issues, and by which medical institutions extend their authority into areas of life previously not considered medical. The term is used across sociology, anthropology, history, and public health to describe both diagnostic expansion and the framing of human problems as illnesses.

Key mechanisms include the expansion of diagnostic categories in manuals such as the DSM and ICD, the use of medical language in policy and media, incentives from healthcare systems and the pharmaceutical industry, and the increasing role of professionals and institutions in deciding what counts as a medical problem.

Medicalization can facilitate access to treatment, reduce stigma for some conditions, and provide relief. Conversely, it can pathologize ordinary life events or self-limiting conditions, redefine social or moral issues as medical ones, and expand medical surveillance and influence over individual behavior and social life.

Examples often cited include the medicalization of childbirth, menopause, aging, ADHD, obesity, alcoholism, and chronic pain. Critics warn that medicalization may overdiagnose, depersonalize patients, and shift responsibility from social and political solutions to medical management.

The concept has been elaborated by scholars such as Peter Conrad, Irving Zola, and others, who discuss medicalization alongside processes like demedicalization and the politics of health. It remains a contested framework for understanding changes in medicine, society, and everyday life.