health and illness, sociology of A field of sociology concerned with the social dimensions of health and illness, it covers three main areas: namely, the conceptualization of health and illness; the study of their measurement and social distribution; and the explanation of patterns of health and illness. Clarification of the concepts of health and illness is the starting-point of sociological discussion in the field, with emphasis given to the cultural variability of the boundaries of health and illness, to the multi-faceted nature of the concepts, and to their evaluative nature. Ill-health refers to a bodily or mental state that is deemed undesirable, consequently intervention to ameliorate or remedy that condition can be justified—a position analysed most fully by Talcott Parsons in his highly influential discussion of sickness as a social role in which processes of social regulation and social control play an important part.