Teaching

SOC 660: Social Origins of Health Inequality

Medical sociology can be subdivided into two broad areas: (1) the sociology of health, illness, and treatment-seeking, and (2) the organization of medical care. We focus on the first area in this course, exploring the social origins of illness and the ways it shapes health inequalities. We will begin by reading classic and contemporary work on the social construction of illness as well as the subjective experiences of illness. Next, we will read about the unequal distribution of disease, disability, and death by social status and race/ethnicity. We will end by examining theories that seek to explain how these inequalities are generated and reproduced including fundamental causes, stress, cumulative disadvantage, and access to health care.

Graduate level course

SOC 365 Health & Society - Sociology for Health Professionals

Health care providers play an important role in our society, but their interactions with patients are only one piece of the broader structure that determines the health of their patients. Sociology provides the tools to understand the structural factors enabling or impeding their patients’ success, specifically the subfield of the sociology of health and illness (medical sociology). Our primary objective will be to use the sociology of health and illness as a lens to learn about topics related to health services, ranging from the history of medicine to medical ethics. This objective will provide you with the tools to connect your everyday experiences with health, illness, and health care to larger social phenomena. It will also help you prepare for social portions of the Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior section that are included in the new Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT).

Undergraduate level course

SOC 101 Social Problems - Medicine in America

At some point in our lives each of us has been or will be affected by an illness. These experiences expose us to the medical system and health care providers and provide a deeper understanding of what it means to be healthy. The sociology of health and illness explores these questions within the larger institutional context (e.g., hospitals, pharmaceutical industry) and broader societal trends of power and inequality. We will begin by exploring the institutional evolution of the current U.S. health care system. In addition to the Western biomedical system, we consider the role of public health, health demography, and alternative medicine. After gaining an understanding of the broader health care system, we will then delve into individual illness experiences, medicalization, patient-provider interaction, health care utilization, and medical uncertainty. We will consider how social background affects the ways that people experience illness, seek help while they are sick, engage in preventive behaviors, and utilize Western biomedical or alternative medicine. We will also consider the medicalization of mental health and deviant behavior in the United States. Differences in health exposures, illness experiences, help seeking behaviors, health behaviors, and health care utilization by social groups lead to health inequalities. In the final part of the class, we will examine these inequalities (e.g., by race, gender, and socioeconomic status) and consider some theoretical explanations. We will conclude the course by focusing on health policy and international perspectives.

Undergraduate level course