In Term 2, we have looked at how the social environment of different groups of people may influence their health. We have thus far looked at Gender, and Ethnicity and discussed how the social status of these groups affect their ability to access healthcare or maintain their health. 

Within Sociology, the emphasis is to look at social groupings and see how society treats the members of these groupings that may compromise their healthcare or health behaviours. In other words, for the last 3 weeks, we have been essentially asking these couple of questions:

1. How by belonging to certain social groupings can EXPOSE certain groups of people to healthcare challenges that may negatively affect their health?  

2. How are people of certain social groups made more VULNERABLE because of their social status?

Here are the areas to be covered in your learning journey for this week:

1. The Sociology of Ageing or How Ageing Affects the Elderly in Society .

2. Theories on Ageing

3. Depression, Suicides and Illness-Vulnerability

4. The Transtheoretical Model of Behaviour Change applied to Ageing

By the end of this week's lesson, you should understand How ageing and transitioning to retirement age affects the elderly health decisions and health status within society.  

• You will be able to understand that who we are is a direct results of the social programming that happened to us during the process of socialisation.

• Learn to apply the Trans-theoretical Model of Behaviour Change to understand how to help patients shift to medical compliance.