MEDICAL SOCIOLOGY COMPREHENSIVE EXAM READING LIST
SOCIOLOGY (PHD)
Kent State University – University of Akron
MINOR
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.
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