SO 235 - Medical Sociology

4.00 credits.

Health and illness can only be adequately understood within a consideration of sociological, political, economic, and cultural forces. This course will provide an overview of sociological perspectives and methods for understand the social meanings of illness, the social construction of health and disease, the distribution of
health and medical resources across populations, the ways that cultural, organizational and economic interact with healthcare institutions, and reasons that some deviant behaviors are medicalized and others are not. We will utilize the sociological imagination to assess the effects of macro level factors upon access to healthcare, wellness, and disease.