Medicalization

Medicalization
Medicalization (or medicalisation) is the process by which health or behavior conditions come to be defined and treated as medical issues. The term refers to the process by which certain events or characteristics of everyday life become medical issues, and thus come within the purview of doctors and other health professionals to engage with, study, and treat. The process of medicalization typically involves changes in social attitudes and terminology, and usually accompanies (or is driven by) the availability of treatments. The medicalization of these life experiences has brought with it benefits, but at a price. And those costs, which are not just financial, are not always clear.