15th Edition

Medical Sociology

By William Cockerham Copyright 2022
    466 Pages 62 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    466 Pages 62 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    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)

    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

    Biography

    William C. Cockerham is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Chair Emeritus

    at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Research Scholar of Sociology at

    the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, USA. He held secondary

    appointments in medicine and public health at UAB and is recipient of several awards

    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

    boards of several journals, including the American Sociological Review and Society and

    Mental Health. Currently, he is deputy editor of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

    He has published numerous peer-reviewed papers and is author or editor of 20 books.

    Recent books are the Wiley Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology (

    2021) and Social Causes of Health and Disease, 3rd ed. (2021). His newest books

    with Routledge are Sociological Theories of Health and Illness (2021), Sociology of Mental

    Disorder, 11th ed. (2021), and The COVID-19 Reader: What the Science Says About the

    Social (2021).