Sickness and death are unavoidable facts of life. However, the likelihood of becoming ill or being disabled, and the experience and circumstances of dying, are not haphazard. Social relations shape health status, illness experience, responses to the sick and definitions of care.

Health Matters presents contemporary perspectives and empirical evidence in the sociology of health, focusing on inequalities in health and illness, healthcare and prevention. Chapters cover ethnicity and health, perspectives on the body, the study of health and the emotions, postmodernism and health, psychiatric disability and community-based care, health and the discourse of weight control, the health consumer's perspective, health status in developing economies, healthcare and the popular media, medical practice and medical authority, and inequalities in healthcare in late modern societies.

The collection offers a 'state of the art' overview of recent scholarship in the sociology of health, and includes contributions from the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. It will be of interest to undergraduates in sociology, particularly those in the sociology of health, students in social work, nursing and public health, as well as postgraduates and established researchers.