MEDICAL SOCIOLOGY COMPREHENSIVE EXAM READING LIST
SOCIOLOGY (PHD)
Kent State University – University of Akron
MAJOR
THEORY AND INTRODUCTION TO THE FIELD
Pearlin, Leonard I. 1989. “The Sociological Study of Stress.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior.
30: 241-56.
Thoits, Peggy. 1995. “Stress, Coping and Social Support Processes.” Journal of Health and Social
Behavior. Extra Issue: 53-79.
Turner, R. Jay. and William R. Avison. 2003. “Status Variations in Stress Exposure: Implications for the
Interpretation of Research on Race, Socioeconomic Status, and Gender.” Journal of Health and
Social Behavior. 44:488-505.
Gaylin, Daniel S. and Jennifer Kates. 1997. “Refocusing the Lens: Epidemiologic Transition Theory,
Mortality Differentials and the AIDS Pandemic.” Social Science Medicine. 44:609-613.
McKinley, John B., Sonja M. McKinlay, and Robert Beaglehole. 1989. “A Review of Evidence
Concerning the Impact of Medical Measures on Recent Mortality and Morbidity in the U.S.”
International Journal of Health Services. 19:181-208.
Mechanic, David. 2001. “Social Research in Health and the American Sociopolitical Context: The
Changing Fortunes of Medical Sociology.” Pp. 4-14 in Readings in Medical Sociology, edited by
D.A. Matcha. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
METHODOLOGY
Baron, Reuben. M., and Kenny, David. A. 1986. “The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social
psychological research: Conceptual, strategic and statistical considerations.” Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology 51: 1173-1182.
Charmaz, Kathy and Virginia Oleson. 1997. “Ethnographic Research in Medical Sociology: Its Foci
and Distinctive Contributions.” Sociological Methods Research. 25: 452-494.
Firebaugh, Glenn. 2008. Seven Rules for Social Research. Princeton University Press.
Chapter 5 - 6.
Liu, Hui and Debra J. Umberson. 2008. “The Times They Are a Changin’: Marital Status and Health
Differentials from 1972 to 2003.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 49:239-253.
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STRATIFICATION AND HEALTH
Evans, Robert G. 1994. “Introduction.” Pp. 3–26 in Why Are Some People Healthy and Others Not? The
Determinants of Health of Populations, edited by R.G. Evans, M.L. Barer, and T. R. Marmor.
New York: Aldine De Gruyter.
Marmot, Michael. 2004. Status Syndrome: How Social Standing Affects Our Health and Longevity.
Henry Holt & Company, Incorporated.
Robert, S.A. 1999. “Socioeconomic Position and Health: The Independent Contribution of Community
Socioeconomic Context. Annual Review of Sociology, 25: 489-516.
DelVecchio Good, Mary Jo; Cara James, Byron J. Good, and Anne E. Becker. 2002. “The Culture of
Medicine and Racial, Ethnic and Class Disparities in Health.” Russell Sage Foundation Working
Paper #199 (available online).
Fundamental Cause Perspective
Link, Bruce G. 2003. “The Production of Understanding.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior.
44:457-69.
Link, Bruce G. and Jo Phelan. 1995. “Social Conditions as Fundamental Causes of Disease.” Journal of
Health and Social Behavior. (Extra Issue):80-94.
Age
House, J. S., P.M. Lantz, P. and Herd. 2005. “Continuity and Change in the Social Stratification of
Aging and Health Over the Life Course: Evidence from a Nationally Representative
Longitudinal Study from 2986 to 2001/2 (Americans’ Changing Lives Study).” Journal of
Gerontology SS 60B (Special Issue II):15-26.
Gender
Bird, Chloe E. and Patricia P. Rieker. 2008. Gender and Health: The Effects of Constrained Choices
and Social Policies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schnittker, Jason. 2007. “Working More and Feeling Better: Women’s Health, Employment and Family
Life, 1974-2004.” American Sociological Review. 72: 221-238.
Race
LaVeist, Thomas A. (Ed) 2002. Race, Ethnicity, and Health. New York: Wiley and Sons
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LIFE COURSE AND CUMULATIVE DISADVANTAGE
Ferraro, Kenneth, Melissa M. Farmer, and John A. Wybraniec. 1997. “Health Trajectories: Long-Term
Dynamics Among Black and White Adults.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior. 38:38-54.
Hertzman, Clyde. 1999. “The Biological Embedding of Early Experience and Its Effects on Health in
Adulthood.” Annals of the New York Academy of Science. 896:85-95.
Conley, Dalton and Neil G. Bennett. 2000. “Is Biology Destiny? Birth Weight and Life Chances.”
American Sociological Review. 65: 458- 467.
Palloni, Alberto and Carolina Milesi. 2006. “Economic Achievement, Inequalities and Health
Disparities: the Intervening Role of Early Health Status.” Research Social Stratification and
Mobility. 24:21-40.
Schnittker, Jason. 2004. “Education and the Changing Shape of the Income Gradient in Health.” Journal
of Health and Social Behavior. 45: 286-305.
Willson, Andrea, Kim Shuey and Glen H. Elder, Jr. 2007. “Cumulative Advantage Processes as
Mechanisms of Inequality in Life Course Health.” American Journal of Sociology. 112: 18861924.
Ross, Catherine and Chia-Ling Wu. 1995. “The Links Between Education and Health.” American
Sociological Review. 60:719-745.
House, James S., et al. 1994. “The Social Stratification of Aging and Health.” Journal of Health and
Social Behavior. 35:213-234.
ILLNESS EXPERIENCE AND THE SICK ROLE
Bury, Mike. 2001. “Illness Narratives: Fact or Fiction?”Sociology of Health and Illness. 23(3): 263-285.
Levin, Sol and Martin A. Kozloff. 1978. “The Sick Role: Assessment and Overview.” Annual Review of
Sociology. 4: 317-343.
Parsons, Talcott. 1951. “Social Structure and Dynamic Process: The Case of Modern Medical Practice.”
Pp. 428-478 of The Social System. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Twaddle, A. 1979. “The Sick Role.” Chapter 3 in Sickness Behavior and the Sick Role. Cambridge,
M.A.: Schenkman.
Frank, Arthur W. 1993. “The Rhetoric of Self-Change: Illness Experience as Narrative. The
Sociological Quarterly. 34: 39-52.
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PROFESSIONS
Becker, Howard et al. 1961. Boys in White: Student Culture in Medical School. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Bosk, Charles L. 1979. Forgive and Remember: Managing Medical Failure. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Chambliss, Daniel F. 1996. Beyond Caring: Doctors, Nurses and the Social Organization of Ethics.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Freidson, Eliot. 1970. Profession of Medicine: A Study of the Sociology of Applied Knowledge. New
York: Dodd, Mead.
Starr, Paul. 1984. The Social Transformation of American Medicine. New York: Basic Books.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION AND MEDICALIZATION
Conrad, Peter. 2005. "The Shifting Engines of Medicalization." Journal of Health and Social
Behavior, 46:3-14.
Brown, Phil. 1995. “Naming and Framing: The Social Construction of Diagnosis and Illness.” Journal
of Health and Social Behavior (Extra Issue):34-52.
Conrad, Peter. 1992. “Medicalization and Social Control.” Annual Review of Sociology. 18:209-232.
Foucault, Michael. 1973. The Birth of a Clinic: The Archaeology of Medical Perception. New York:
Vintage.
Smith, Barbara Ellen. 1981. “Black Lung: The Social Production of Disease.” International Journal of
Health Services. 11:343-59.
Casper, Monica J. 1998. The Making of an Unborn Patient: A Social Anatomy of Fetal Surgery. New
Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.
GLOBAL HEALTH/CROSS CULTURAL ISSUES IN HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE
Farmer, Paul. 1999. “Pathologies of Power: Rethinking Health and Human Rights.” American Journal
of Public Health. 89: 1486-96.
Heuveline, Patrick, Michel Guillot, and Davidson R. Gwatkin. 2002. “The Uneven Tides of the Health
Transition.” Social Science and Medicine. 55:313-22.
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Garret, L. 2007. “The Challenge of Global health.” Foreign Affairs 86: 14-38 (Jan/Feb. (See also
Foreign Affairs (Jan 2007). On a Roundtable on How to Promote Global health.
Lee, K. (ed.). 2003. Health Impacts of Globalization. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
POLITICAL ECONOMY OF HEALTH CARE
Andersen, Ronald M. 1995. “Revisiting the Behavioral Model and Access to Medical Care: Does It
Matter?” Journal of Health and Social Behavior. 36(March):1-10.
Light, Donald W. 2004. “Introduction: Ironies of Success – A New History of the American Health Care
‘System.”’ Journal of Health and Social Behavior. Extra Issue 45: 1-24.
Mechanic, David. 2004. “The Rise and Fall of Managed Care.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior.
45 (Extra Issue):76-86.
Quadagno, Jill. 2004. “Why the United States Has No National Health Insurance.” Journal of Health
and Social Behavior, Special Issue, 45: 25-44.
MAJOR
METHODOLOGY
Browning, Christopher and Kathleen A. Cagney. 2002. “Neighborhood structural Disadvantage,
Collective Efficacy, and Self-Rated Physical Health in an Urban Setting.” Journal of Health and
Social Behavior 43:383-399.
Haas Steven A. 2006. “Health Selection and the Process of Social Stratification: The Effect of
Childhood Health on Socioeconomic Attainment.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior.
47:339-354.
Harnish, Jennifer D., Robert H. Aseltine, Jr. and Susan Gore. 2000. “Resolution of Stressful Experiences
as an Indicator of Coping Effectiveness in Young Adults: An Event History Analysis.” Journal
of Health and Social Behavior. 41:121-136
Krull, Jennifer L. and David P. MacKinnon. 2001. “Multilevel Modeling of Individual and Group Level
Mediation Effects.” Multivariate Behavioral Research. 36: 249-77.
Stolzenberg, Ross M. and Daniel A. Relles. 1997. “Tools for Intuition about Sample Selection Bias and
Its Correction.” American Sociological Review. 62: 494-507.
Yang Yang. 2007. “Is Old Age Depressing? Growth Trajectories and Cohort variations in Late Life
Depression.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior. 48:16-32.
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STRATIFICATION AND HEALTH
Kawachi, Ichiro., Bruce P. Kennedy, and Roberta Glass. 1999. “Social Capital and Self-Rated Health: A
Contextual Analysis.” American Journal of Public Health. 89:1187-1193.
Sampson, Robert J. 2008. ‘Moving to Inequality: Neighborhood Effects and Experiments Meet Social
Structure.’ American Journal of Sociology. 114:189-231.
Wilkinson, Richard. 2005. The Impact of Inequality: How to Make Sick Societies Healthier.
Routledge.
Fundamental Cause Perspective
Luftey, Karen and Jeremy Freese. 2005. “Toward Some Fundamentals of Fundamental Causality:
Socioeconomic Status and Health in the Routine Clinic Visit for Diabetes.” American Journal of
Sociology. 110(5):1326-1372.
Phelan, Jo C., Bruce G. Link, Ana Diez-Rouz, Ichiro Kawachi, and Bruce Levin. 2004. “’Fundamental
Causes’ of Social Inequalities in Mortality: A Test of the Theory.” Journal of Health and Social
Behavior. 45:265-285.
Gender
Arber, Sara. 1997. “Comparing Inequalities in Women’s and Men’s Health.” Social Science Medicine.
44:773-787.
Race
Hayward, Mark D., Eileen M. Crimmins, Toni P. Miles, and Yu Yang. 2000. “The Significance of
Socioeconomic Status in Explaining the Racial Gap in Chronic Health Conditions.” American
Sociological Review. 65 (December):910-930.
Lillie-Blanton, Marsha and Thomas LaVeist. 1996. “Race/Ethnicity, the Social Environment, and
Health.” Social Science and Medicine. 43(1): 83-92.
LIFE COURSE AND CUMULATIVE DISADVANTAGE
Wickrama, K.A.S, Conger, R.D., Lorenz, F.O., & Jung, T. (2008). Family antecedents and
consequences of trajectories of depressive symptoms from adolescence to young adulthood: A
life course investigation. Journal of Health and Social Behavior. 49: 468-483.
Case, Anne, Darren Lubotsky and Christina Paxson. 2002. “Economic Status and Health in Childhood:
The Origins of the Gradient.” The American Economic Review. 92: 1308-1334.
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Dupre, Matthew E. 2008. “Educational Differences in Health Risks and Illness over the Life Course: A
test of Cumulative Disadvantage Theory.” Social Science Research. 37: 1253-1266.
Luo, Y. & Waite, L.J. (2005). The impact of adult and childhood SES on physical, mental, and
cognitive well-being in later life. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 60B, S93-101.
Wheaton, B. & Clarke, P. (2003). Space meets time: Integrating temporal and contextual influences on
mental health in early adulthood. American Sociological Review. 68: 680-706.
Hamil-Luker, J. and O’Rand, A. M. 2007. ”Gender Differences in the Link between Childhood
Socioeconomic Conditions and Heart Attack Risk in Adulthood.” Demography. 44:137-158.
Ross, Catherine and Chia-Ling Wu. 1996. “Education, Age and the Cumulative Advantage in Health.”
Journal of Health and Social Behavior. 37:104-120.
Bianchi, Suzanne M., Lynne M. Casper, and Rosalind Berkowitz King (Eds.) 2006. Work, Family,
Health, and Well-Being. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
ILLNESS EXPERIENCE AND THE SICK ROLE
Charmaz, Kathy. 1991. Good Days, Bad Days: The Self in Chronic Illness and Time. New Brunswick,
NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Karp, David A. 1996. Speaking of Sadness: Depression, Disconnection and the Meanings of Illness.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Kleinman, Arthur. 1988. The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing and the Human Condition. New
York: Basic Books, Chapters 1-5.
Lawton, Julia. 2009. “Illness, Biography and Narrative: Editorial Introduction” Sociology of Health and
Illness Virtual Special Issue 3 http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/shil_enhanced/virtual3_full.asp
PROFESSIONS
Fox, Renee. 1957. ‘Training for Uncertainty.’ Pp. 207-241 in Merton, Robert K., George G. Reader, and
Patricia L. Kendall (eds). The Student-Physician: Introductory Studies in the Sociology of
Medical Education Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Hafferty, Fredric. 2000. “Reconfiguring the Sociology of Medical Education: Emerging Topics and
Pressing Issues.” Pp. 238-257 in Handbook of Medical Sociology (5th Ed.), edited by C. Bird, P.
Conrad, and A. Fremont. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Hoff, Timothy J. 2001. “Same Profession, Different People: Stratification, Structure, and Physicians’
Employment Choices.” Pp. 228-245 in Readings in Medical Sociology, edited by D.A. Matcha.
Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
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Hoff, Timothy, Winthrop Whitcomb, and John R. Nelson. 2002. “Thriving and Surviving in a New
Medical Career: The Case of Hospitalist Physicians.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior.
43:72-91.
Katz-Rothman, Barbara. 1983. "Mid-Wives in Transition: The Structure of a Clinical Revolution."
Social Problems. Vol. 30(3): 262-271.
Kronenfeld, Jennie Jacobs and Stephanie L. Ayers. 2009. “Social Sources of Disparities in Use of
Complementary and Alternative Medicine.” In Research in the Sociology of Health Care.
volume 27:82-107. Greenwich CT: JAI Press.
Light, Donald W. 2000. “The Medical Profession and Organizational Change: From Professional
Dominance to Countervailing Power.” In Handbook of Medical Sociology, pp 210-225. Edited
by C.E. Bird, P. Conrad, and A.M. Fremont. New York: Prentic Hall.
McKinlay, John B. 1988. “Introduction: The Changing Character of the Medical Profession.” Milbank
Quarterly, Supplement 2, 66:1-9.
Stevens, Rosemary A. 2001. “Public Roles for the Medical Profession in the United States: Beyond
Theories of Decline and Fall.” Milbank Quarterly. 79:1-15.
Yoels, William C., and Jeffrey Michael Claire. 1999. “Never Enough Time: How Medical Residents
Manage a Scarce Resource.” Pp. 131-144 in Health, Illness, and Healing: Accounts of Illness
and the Illness Experience, edited by K. Charmaz and D.A. Paterniti. Los Angeles, CA:
Roxbury.
Wolinsky, Fredric D. 1988. “The Professional Dominance Perspective, Revisited.” Milbank Quarterly,
Supplement 2, 66:33-47.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION AND MEDICALIZATION
Adele, E. Clark, Janet K. Shim, Laura Mamo, Jennifer Ruth Fosket and Jennifer R. Fishman. 2003.
“Biomedicalization: Technoscientific Transformations of Health, Illness, and U.S. Biomedicine.”
American Sociological Review. 68(2):161-194.
Arksey, Hilary. 1994. “Expert and Lay Participation in the Construction of Medical Knowledge.”
Sociology of Health and Illness. 16:448-68.
Turner, Bryan S. (with Colin Sampson). 1995. Medical Power and Social Knowledge. (2nd Ed.).
London: SAGE Publications. 288pp. [excluding pp. 37-54 “on being sick”; that chapter is
included separately]. (ISBN paperback is 0803975996; hardcover is 0803975988; (first edition
was 1987 by Turner alone)
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Brown, Phil and Stephen Zavestotski. 2004. “Social Movements in Health: An Introduction.” Sociology
of Health and Illness. 26(6):679-874.
Epstein, Steven. 1996. Impure Science: AIDS, Activism and the Politics of Knowledge. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
GLOBAL HEALTH/CROSS CULTURAL ISSUES IN HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE
Murray, Christopher J.L. and Alan D. Lopez. 1996. The Global Burden of Disease: Summary. World
Health Organization.
Beaglehole, Robert (ed.). 2003. Global Public Health: A New Era. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rohde, Jon et al. 2008. “Alma-Ata: 30 years after Alma-Ata: has primary health care worked in
countries?” The Lancet. 372: 950-61.
POLITICAL ECONOMY OF HEALTH CARE
Light, Donald W. 2005. “Comparative Models of ‘Health Care’ Systems.” Pp. 500-514 in The Sociology
of Health and Illness: Critical Perspectives. (7th Ed.), edited by Peter Conrad. New York, NY:
Worth Publishing.
Mechanic, David. 2006. The Truth about Health Care. Why Reform is Not Working in America. N.J.:
Rutgers University Press.
Stevens, Fred. 2001. “The Convergence and Divergence of Modern Health Care Systems.” Pp. 159-176
in The Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology, edited by W. Cockerman. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Timmermans, Stefan and Emily Kolker. 2004. “Evidenced-Based Medicine and the Reconfiguration of
Medical Knowledge.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior. 45(Extra Issue):177-193.
Winnick, Terri A. 2005. “From Quackery to “Complementary” Medicine: The American Medical
Profession Confronts Alternative Therapies.” Social Problems. 52(1):38-61.
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