Fox P
University of California, San Francisco.
Milbank Q. 1989;67(1):58-102.
Alzheimer's disease, once a rarely applied medical diagnosis, is now considered to be the fourth or fifth leading cause of death in the United States. Several interrelated factors account for the disease's ascendancy as the preferred category to characterize specific types of neuropsychiatric problems associated with aging. These include a shift in the disease's conceptualization, the emergence of an institutional structure facilitating increased awareness of the disease, and the growth of a constituency advocating greater spending for and expansion of research on the disorder. A biological phenomenon was transformed into a social issue when persons took concerted action to promote Alzheimer's disease as a major social and health problem affecting the elderly.
阿尔茨海默病，曾经是一个很少被应用的医学诊断，现在被认为是美国第四或第五大死因。几个相互关联的因素导致了这种疾病作为描述与衰老相关的特定类型神经精神问题的首选类别而崛起。这些因素包括疾病概念的转变、促进对该疾病认识提高的机构结构的出现，以及主张增加对该疾病研究支出和扩大研究的选民群体的壮大。当人们采取一致行动将阿尔茨海默病宣传为影响老年人的主要社会和健康问题时，一种生物学现象就转变成了一个社会问题。
