Medical sociology can be subdivided into two broad areas: the sociology of health, illness, disability, and treatment-seeking, and the organization of medical care. This course focuses on the first area, exploring the social origins of illness and disability. We will review classic and contemporary work on the social construction of illness and biomedical knowledge, and on the unequal distribution of disease, disability, and death by social status. We will also assess various theories of the social etiology of health disparities, including fundamental social causes, stress, cumulative disadvantage, and differential patterns of help-seeking.

Medical sociology can be subdivided into two broad areas: the sociology of health, illness, disability, and treatment-seeking, and the organization of medical care. This course focuses on the first area, exploring the social origins of illness and disability. We will review classic and contemporary work on the social construction of illness and biomedical knowledge, and on the unequal distribution of disease, disability, and death by social status. We will also assess various theories of the social etiology of health disparities, including fundamental social causes, stress, cumulative disadvantage, and differential patterns of help-seeking.