Medical Sociology

The most thorough major academic textbook available, this classic text presents the most important research studies in the field. The author also integrates engaging first-person accounts from patients, physicians, and other health care providers throughout the text. A much greater number of first person accounts and updated examples are added to the new fourteenth edition. Other updates include:

• Coverage of Zika, Ebola, MERS, and updates on other pandemics

• Expanded discussion of obesity as a disease

• Coverage of the widening gap in life expectancy between the rich and the poor

• New information on the decline of life expectancy among American white women, especially those who live in rural counties

• New material on biomarkers, gene–environment interaction, and stress

• Analysis of the role of the hidden curriculum in medical schools

• Exiting the Affordable Care Act

William C. Cockerham received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, USA, and is Distinguished Professor and Chair of Sociology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA. He holds secondary appointments in medicine and public health and is recipient of the Frederick W. Connor Prize for Outstanding Contribution to the History of Ideas and the Caroline P. and Charles W. Ireland Award for Scholarly Distinction. He is past President of the Research Committee on Health Sociology of the International Sociological Association and formerly was on the Editorial Board of the American Sociological Review. Currently, he is on the Editorial Boards of Social Currents and Society and Mental Health. Dr. Cockerham has published numerous peer-reviewed papers in academic journals and is author or editor of 18 books. His most recent books from Routledge include Sociology of Mental Disorder 10E (2017).