Medical Sociology

William C. Cockerham is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Chair Emeritus at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Research Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park. He previously held a joint appointment in sociology and psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is past President of the Research Committee on Health Sociology of the International Sociological Association, and formerly served on the editorial boards of the American Sociological Review, the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Society and Mental Health, Social Currents, and other journals. Dr Cockerham has published numerous peer-reviewed papers in academic journals and is author or editor of 20 books. His most recent books from Routledge include Sociology of Mental Disorder (2024), Sociological Theories of Health and Illness (2021), and The COVID-19 Reader: The Science and What It Says About the Social (2021).

Part I: Introduction 1. Medical Sociology 2. Social Epidemiology 3. The Social Causes, Impacts, and Responses to 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 Part II: Health and Illness 7. Social Stress and Health 8. Health Behavior and Lifestyles 9. Illness Behavior and the Sick Role Part III: Providing Health Care 10. Physician–Patient Interaction 11. Physicians 12. The Physician in a Changing Society 13. Nurses, Physician Assistants, Pharmacists, and Midwives 14. Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) Part IV: Health-Care Delivery Systems 15. Hospitals 16. Health Care Reform and Health Public Policy in the United States 17. Global Health Care