It is increasingly the case that lay people use a medical framework to give order and meaning to their own problems. In part, this trend is fueled by the influence of media, including television advertising and the widespread availability of health-related information on the Internet. In other words, although the medical gaze continues to be turned toward more aspects of the human condition, medicalization is no longer strictly to result of medical imperialism.
Other "engines" of medicalization are influential: consumers, biotechnology - including the pharmaceutical industry - and managed care. Moreover, human enhancement is becoming ever more relevant. Human enhancement, or the use of biomedical technology to improve human performance in a variety of spheres, is taking medicine into new terrain. Rather than treating the sick, human enhancement involves creating what has been called the "bionic society". In such a society human nature is transformed by biomedical technology, with significant consequences. Cognitive and emotional enhancements are two examples of this trend.
This volume examines and provides a sociological analysis of this increasingly important development.

Antonio Maturo is Associate Professor of Sociology of Health at Università di Bologna. Antonio Maturo is also Regular Visiting Professor at Brown University and was Visiting Scientist at both Harvard and New York University. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the European Society for Health and Medical Sociology.
Kristin Barker is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of New Mexico. She has recently published "Dead by 50: Lay Expertise and Breast Cancer Screening." Social Science & Medicine 72: 1351-1358, 2011 (with Tasha Galardi); "The Social Construction of Illness: Key Insights and Policy Implications." Journal of Health and Social Behavior 51(S):67-79, 2010, (with Peter Conrad) and The Fibromyalgia Story: Medical Authority and Women's Worlds of Pain. Temple University Press, 2005.