Author Bio

Chloe E. Bird is Senior Sociologist at the RAND Corporation.

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Peter Conrad is Harry Coplan Professor of Social Sciences at Brandeis University.

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Allen M. Fremont is a physician, sociologist, and health services researcher based at RAND, with appointments at UCLA and the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration Medical Center.

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Stefan Timmermans is Professor of Sociology at UCLA.

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Main Description

Composed entirely of specially commissioned chapters by some of the outstanding scholars in medical sociology, this edition reflects important changes in the study of health and illness. In addition to updated and reconceived chapters on the impacts of gender, race, and inequality on health, this volume has new chapters on topics that include:



--social networks, neighborhoods, and social capital

--disability

--dying and "the right to die"

--health disparities

--the growing influence of the pharmaceutical industry

--the internet

--evidence-based medicine and quality of care

--health social movements

--genetics

--religion, spirituality, and health

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Reviews

"I recommend this book strongly as a breath of fresh air (seemingly from Mars) into our stuffy medical realm."
Howard Spiro, Emeritus Professor of Medicine, Yale Medical School

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At a Glance

The latest version of an important academic resource published about once a decade since 1963

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Table of Contents

CONTENTS:



Preface

Chloe E. Bird, Peter Conrad, Allen M. Fremont, and Stefan Timmermans





Social Contexts and Health Disparities


1. Social Conditions as Fundamental Causes of Health Inequalities

Bruce Link and Jo Phelan





2. Social Capital and Health


Ichiro Kawachi





3. Why Education Is the Key to Socioeconomic Differentials in Health


Catherine E. Ross and John Mirowsky





4. Understanding Gender and Health: Old Patterns, New Trends, and Future Directions


Patricia P. Rieker, Chloe E. Bird, and Martha E. Lang





5. Social Support, Sex, and Food: Social Networks and Health


Gina S. Lovasi, jimi adams, and Peter S. Bearman





6. Race, Social Contexts, and Health: Examining Geographic Spaces and Places


David T. Takeuchi, Emily Walton, and ManChui Leung





7. The Latino Health Paradox: Looking at the Intersection of Sociology and Health


Tamara Dubowitz, Lisa M. Bates, and Dolores Acevedo-Garcia





8. A Life Course Approach to the Study of Neighborhoods and Health


Stephanie A. Robert, Kathleen A. Cagney, and Margaret M. Weden





Healthcare Organization, Delivery, and Impact


9. Gender and Health Care


Renee R. Anspach





10. The Dynamics of Institutional Disarray: "Muddling Through" Profound Change in U.S. Health Care


Peter Mendel and W. R. Scott





11. Health Care Professions, Markets, and Countervailing Powers


Donald W. Light





12. The Sociological Concomitants of the Pharmaceutical Industry and Medications


John Abraham





13. Evidence-Based Medicine: Sociological Explorations


Stefan Timmermans





14. The Sociology of Quality and Safety in Health Care: Studying a Movement and Moving Sociology


Teun Zuiderent-Jerak and Marc Berg





Health Trajectories and Experiences


15. The Sociology of Disability: Historical Foundations and Future Directions


Gary L. Albrecht





16. The Social Construction of Illness: Medicalization and Contested Illness


Kristen K. Barker





17. The Internet and the Experience of Illness


Peter Conrad and Cheryl Stults





18. The Patient's Experience of Illness


David A. Rier





19. Death, Dying, and the "Right to Die"


Clive Seale





Crosscutting Issues


20. Health Social Movements: History, Current Work, and Future Directions


Phil Brown, Crystal Adams, Rachel Morello-Frosch, Laura Senier, and Ruth Simpson





21. Religion, Spirituality, Health, and Medicine: Sociological Intersections


Wendy Cadge





22. Biotechnology and the Prolongation of Life: A Sociological Critique


Bryan S. Turner





23. Health, Security, and New Biological Threats: Reconfigurations of Expertise


Stephen J. Collier and Andy Lakoff





24. The Application of Biomarker Data to the Study of Social Determinants of Health


Regina A. Shih, Meenakshi M. Fernandes, and Chloe E. Bird





25. Gene Environment Interaction and Medical Sociology


Sara Shostak and Jeremy Freese

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