Health, Illness, and Society

by Steven E. Barkan (Author)

This engaging text provides a sociological perspective on health, illness, and health care. Serving as an introduction to medical sociology for undergraduate and graduate students, it also presents a summary of the field for medical sociologists and for public health scholars and practitioners. A highlight of the text is its emphasis on the social roots of health and disease and on the impact of social inequality on health disparities and the quality of health care. The book also critically examines health care in the United States and around the world and evaluates the achievements and limitations of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and other recent health care reform efforts.

Pedagogical aids including chapter-opening Learning Questions and Health and Illness in the News vignettes and chapter-ending Summary and Key Terms sections. Most chapters also end with a Giving It Some Thought vignette in which students are presented with a hypothetical situation involving a health and society issue and asked to reflect on how they would respond in the situation.

This text is accompanied by an ancillary package designed to enhance the learning experience of both instructors and students

Pedagogical aids include:
Learning Questions and Health and Illness in the News vignettes open each chapter.
Summary and Key Terms sections help students review each chapter’s key concepts.
Giving It Some Thought vignettes present students with hypothetical situations involving health and society issues.

About the Author
Steven E. Barkan is professor of sociology at the University of Maine, where he teaches Health, Illness, and Society as well as a number of other courses. He is an award-winning textbook author, whose works include Criminology: A Sociological Understanding, Sixth Edition; Law and Society: An Introduction; Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World; Social Problems: Continuity and Change; and Discovering Society: Using MicroCase ExplorIt, Third Edition. Barkan is a past president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems and currently the president of the Textbook & Academic Authors Association.