General Examination on Sociology of Health
Spring 2013
Instructions: Please answer one question from each set of two below (3 total answers). You
have 4 hours to complete the exam. The best of luck!
SET ONE
1. As you know, Chandra Muller and colleagues' new High School and Beyond (HS&B) project
is collecting phone-based survey data on the employment, family life, and health of mid-life
(aged 50) US adults. Turn the clock ahead 2 or 3 years…let's assume that the project obtains
(much) more funding to do IN-PERSON surveys for the next wave. You are put in charge (as a
committee of 1) of the health data that will be collected, with the key caveat being that you only
have 8-10 minutes to collect such data. Drawing upon the health measurement literature, what
health measures would you collect and why? Keep in mind that the in-person effort allows you
the flexibility to collect survey and/or biomarker data, although the time constraints mentioned
above are real.
2. Demographers and epidemiologists have documented that childhood conditions, including the
in utero environment and childhood social environment, affect health decades later. If you were
called upon to design a new study of the life course origins of health, what are the key
concepts/measures of childhood conditions that you would like to ask adult respondents about
and why? If there are limitations with current studies’ measurement of early life conditions, what
new measures would you like to add – and why -- to better capture childhood conditions?
SET TWO
3. Barring maternal mortality, women’s longevity advantage over men’s is found in practically all
contemporary societies. At the same time, the gender gap in life expectancy in the U.S. has
varied from less than two years to almost eight years during the 20th century, and continues to
vary considerably across high-income countries. Discuss the biological and social explanations
for the gender gap in life expectancy and how these explanations account for gendered
changes in life expectancy over historical time and across nations.
4. That the married are healthier than all other marital groups is now a decades-old “social fact.”
However, recent studies paint a more nuanced picture of the relationship between marriage and
health, with attention to issues such as marital quality, life-long marital biographies, and
changes in the health status of other marital groups. Describe the current state of the evidence
for marital status differences in health. In your essay, answer the question: are the married in
better health than the unmarried?
SET THREE
5. Over the past two decades cumulative disadvantage theory has been integrated into the life
course perspective and applied to health disparities. However, there have been relatively few
empirical tests of the theory and its mechanisms. Recount the theory’s main tenets and current
supporting evidence. How do recent developments advance the field and what are some
promising new directions?
6. Since 1995, Bruce Link and Jo Phelan have written a series of papers on “fundamental
causes of health and disease.” What exactly do Link and Phelan mean when they talk about
“fundamental causes of health and disease?” What is the best empirical evidence to date that
supports and/or refutes their conceptualization of fundamental causes? What key questions
should be asked over the next five years to shed further light on the utility of the fundamental
cause perspective?