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The most comprehensive major academic textbook available on its topic, this classic text presents the most important research studies in the field. The author integrates engaging first-person accounts from patients, physicians, and other health care providers throughout the text. Since its inception, this book's principal goal has been to introduce students to the field of medical sociology and serve as a reference for faculty by presenting the most current ideas, issues, concepts, themes, theories, and research findings in the field. This new edition is heavily revised with updated data and important new additions.
New to this edition:
- A contemporary account of medical sociology's subfields (Chapter 1)
- New chapter on COVID-19 (Chapter 3)
- Update on the widening gap in life expectancy between the rich and the poor (Chapter 4)
- New chapter on gender and health, including the convergence of life expectancy between men and women and its reversal during the COVID-19 pandemic (Chapter 5)
- Updated chapter on aging and expanded discussion of health and race (Chapter 6)
- New developments in doctor-patient interaction, including telemedicine (Chapter 10)
- The survival of the Affordable Care Act (Chapter 16)
List of contents
1. Medical Sociology 2. Social Epidemiology 3. COVID-19 4. The Social Demography of Health: Social Class 5. The Social Demography of Health: Gender 6. The Social Demography of Health: Age and Race 7. Social Stress and Health 8. Health Behavior and Lifestyles 9. Illness Behavior and the Sick Role 10. Doctor-Patient Interaction 11. Physicians 12. The Physician in a Changing Society 13. Nurses, Physician Assistants, Pharmacists, and Midwives 14. Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) 15. Hospitals 16. Health Care Reform and Public Policy in the United States 17. Global Health Care
About the author
William C. Cockerham is Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Chair of Sociology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA. He held secondary appointments in medicine and public health and is recipient of the Frederick W. Connor Prize for Outstanding Contribution to the History of Ideas and the Caroline P. and Charles W. Ireland Award for Scholarly Distinction. He is past President of the Research Committee on Health Sociology of the International Sociological Association and formerly was on the Editorial Board of the American Sociological Review. Dr. Cockerham has published numerous peer-reviewed papers in academic journals and is author or editor of 20 books, including most recently
Sociological Theories of Health and Illness (Routledge 2020) and
The Covid-19 Reader (Routledge 2021).
Summary
The most comprehensive textbook available on its topic, this classic book's principal goal has been to introduce students to medical sociology and serve as a reference for faculty. This new edition is heavily revised with updated data and important new additions.
