SOC 304 - Sociology of Health, Illness, & Medicine

The course explores human health, illness, and the healthcare and medical fields primarily representing a subfield called medical sociology. This course’s sociological and public health approach seeks to understand human illness and disease beyond the traditional biological and medical lenses. Rather, a sociological approach uncovers the important social, political, cultural, and economic forces that alter and mitigate human health outcomes, meanings, and experiences across different settings. An emphasis is placed on the social determinants of health and fundamental causes of disease, such as race, sex/gender, age, socio-economic class, and social integration/support, and how they influence an unequal distribution of health experiences and healthcare outcomes. Further investigation explores how doctors, nurses, and patients interact, construct, and manage illness; also, social epidemiology, the organizational and historical changes in health care systems, and particular social movements and public policy are also discussed. Finally, the course provides a more nuanced understanding of the intersections between local and global health.
Lecture/Seminar
Credits: 3
Offered in the Fall and Spring Semesters
DCCG