SOC 4120 - Health and Social Context

(SBA-AS, SCD-AS, SDS-AS)

Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.

E.Y. Cornwell.

This course examines how the social world gets “under the skin.” We’ll examine the associations between various aspects of social context – including stratification and inequality, social networks and support, and social environments – and physical health. There are two main components of this course. First, we’ll read and discuss previous research on the health effects of social status, patient-physician interactions, employment/work, stress, social networks, social support, loneliness, culture and religion, and the neighborhood context. We’ll consider both qualitative and quantitative research on social life and health, with an eye toward identifying the strengths and weaknesses of various methodological approaches and gaps in current knowledge. The second component of this course is focused on the development of your own research regarding the relationship between social context and health. You’ll explore this using data from a population-based social survey. Class instruction for this portion of the course will cover research question development, the statistical analysis of survey data, and social scientific writing. Three research reports written during the semester will provide you with a foundation from which you will write and present a final paper that considers how health is shaped by the social world.