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 the book’s inception, its 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, ...

This 2nd edition provides readers with an updated single source reviewing and updating sociological theory in medical or health sociology. The book not only addresses the major theoretical approaches in the field today, it also identifies the future directions these theories are likely to take in explaining the social processes affecting health and disease. Many of the chapters are written by leading medical sociologists who feature the use of theory in their everyday work, including contr...

Across the globe, patients are no longer passive recipients of care — they are active participants, decision-makers and collaborators.This timely volume explores the evolving landscape of patient and public involvement (PPI) in healthcare, focusing on its intersection with the healthcare professions. Drawing on international perspectives, the book examines how patients and professionals navigate changing roles, peer support networks and complex healthcare systems. It considers the ...

Sociological Theories of Health and Illness reviews the evolution of theory in medical sociology beginning with the field’s origins in medicine and extending to its present-day standing as a major sociological subdiscipline. Sociological theory has an especially important role in the practice of medical sociology because its theories distinguish the subdiscipline from virtually all other scientific fields engaged in the study of health and illness. The focus is on contemp...

The twelfth edition of the Sociology of Mental Disorder presents the major issues and research findings on the influence of race, social class, gender, and age on the incidence and prevalence of mental disorders. The text also examines the institutions that help those with mental disorders, mental health law, and public policy.Many important updates are new to this edition:The mental health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are examined.Aging and men...

This book provides readers with a single source reviewing and updating sociological theory in medical or health sociology. The book not only addresses the major theoretical approaches in the field today, it also identifies the future directions these theories are likely to take in explaining the social processes affecting health and disease. Many of the chapters are written by leading medical sociologists who feature the use of theory in their everyday work, including contributions from th...

For the first time, life expectancy is declining in an industrialized society. In this pioneering work, William C. Cockerham examines the social causes of the decline in life expectancy beginning in the 1960s including:*Russia*Poland*Hungary*Romania*Bulgaria*the Czech Republic*and East Germany.Health and Social Change in Russia and Eastern Europe argues that the roots of this change are mainly social rather than biomedical - ...

The need for informed analyses of health policy is now greater than ever. The twelve essays in this volume show that public debates routinely bypass complex ethical, sociocultural, historical, and political questions about how we should address ideals of justice and equality in health care. Integrating perspectives from the humanities, social sciences, medicine, and public health, this volume illuminates the relationships between justice and health inequalities to enrich debates.

Groundbreaking analysis showing that greater economic equality-not greater wealth-is the mark of the most successful societies, and offering new ways to achieve it."Get your hands on this book."-Bill MoyersThis groundbreaking book, based on thirty years' research, demonstrates that more unequal societies are bad for almost everyone within them-the well-off and the poor. The remarkable data the book lays out and the measures it uses...

A "powerful and provocative" inquiry into the relationship between societies' inequality and their citizens' health, happiness and well-being (Lisa Berkman, Harvard School of Public Health).Comparing the United States with other market democracies, and one American state with another, this book presents irrefutable evidence that inequality is a driver of poor health, social conflict, and violence. Pioneering social scientist Richard Wilkinson addresses the growing ...

Wasting Away is a provocative text that examines and assesses the Canadian health care system. This seven-chapter book explores the development of the Canadian health care system and breaks the analysis down into accessible units: who provides (the institutions and the people); who pays (funding sources); and who decides (public, private, and patients). The concluding chapter sums up the winners and losers in this system. A new Introduction by the authors thoroughly updates the subject.

The reception of Michel Foucault's work in the social sciences and humanities has been phenomenal. Foucault's concepts and methodology have encouraged new approaches to old problems and opened up new lines of enquiry. This book assesses the contribution of Foucault's work to research and thinking in the area of health and medicine, and shows how key researchers in the sociology of health and illness are currently engaging with his ideas.Foucault, Health and Medicine explore...