Social Foundations Of Behavior For The Health Sciences

This textbook helps students in the health sciences prepare for the social foundations portion of the medical college entrance exam. It provides a solid understanding of the fundamental concepts, theories, and methodologies in sociology that the exam requires. This book offers a condensed overview of the sociological concepts covered during a 15 week semester. It helps students gain an understanding of the social foundations of behavior, and the social determinants of health within the professional context of medicine. Students are provided with the necessary basics in addition to case studies, learning and research activities, recommended external resources, and study questions. These are meant to develop pre-health students’ understanding of the importance of the social factors that influence health outcomes. The featured activities contain various exercises using examples of sociology of health and medicine, including social factors shaping health, social relations between doctors and patients, and the health care system, among others. As a result, this book well informs not only those who wish to prepare for the medical college entrance exam to pursue a career in the health profession, but also anyone who is interested in social perspectives on health and medicine.

This book is intended as a core textbook for courses in public health that examines current issues in health from a social and behavioral science perspective. It is a cross-disciplinary course (public health, medical sociology, health psychology, medical anthropology) and thus there are many ways to teach the course based on a particular instructor's perspective. The authors wrote the book because they were dissatisfied with the way other texts apply social science to public health and found that many texts being used were from related fields such as medicine, nursing or general health.The authors are planning to do a major revision based on reviews they have collected and the reviews we have collected. We believe the revised edition will essentially be a new text based on rich feedback. They will include new theory, new cases, new research, and a rich ancillary package. They will also reduce the frameworks presented to make the book more readable to students.

Social Psychological Foundations of Health and Illness is a summary of current research in social-health psychology. The chapters, written by distinguished leaders in the field, provide brief surveys of classic developments in each area of study followed by extended discussion of the authors’ research programs. Includes state-of-the-art descriptions of new findings and theories concerning social aspects of physical health and illness. Discusses virtually all of the major topics studied in the contemporary field of social-health psychology. Contains chapters written by leading figures in the field that discuss their own research within the context of classic efforts.

Drawing on sociology, anthropology, social psychology, demography, gerontology, economics, and history, contributors to this volume address contemporary health issues within a framework of ecosocial systems in order to address the many layers of influence that affect health. Organized into four part

The Korean American community is one of the major Asian ethnic subgroups in the United States. Though considered among one of the model minority groups, excelling academically and professionally, members in this community are plagued by unaddressed mental health obstacles. In Understanding Korean Americans’ Mental Health: A Guide to Culturally Competent Practices, Program Developments, and Policies, the editors, Anderson Sungmin Yoon, Sung Seek Moon, and Haein Son, examine a variety of mental health issues in the Korean American community, including depression, suicide, substance abuse, and trauma, and convincingly connect these challenges to cultural stigma and racial prejudice. The editors argue that this population and its mental health needs are neglected by current approaches in mainstream mental health services. Alarmingly, the very cultural values that help make up the Korean American community are contributing to its members’ reluctance to seek care, counting both familial and communal shame among the most pressing culprits. This book supports these claims with statistical realities and seeks to gather the relatively scarce research that does exist on this topic to underscore the heightened prevalence of mental health issues among Korean Americans, and the contributors make recommendations for more culturally competent practices, program developments, and policies.

This stimulating book has become a go-to text for understanding the role that social factors play in the experience of health and many diseases. This extensively revised and updated third edition offers the most compelling case yet that stress, poverty, unhealthy lifestyles, and unpleasant living and working conditions can all be directly associated with illness. The book continues to build on the paradigm shift that has been emerging in twenty-first-century medical sociology, which looks beyond individual explanations for health and disease. As the field has headed toward a fundamentally different orientation, William Cockerham’s work has been at the forefront of these changes, and he here marshals evidence and theory for those seeking a clear and authoritative guide to the realities of the social determinants of health. Of particular note in the latest edition is new material on the relationship between gender and health, implications of the life course for health behavior, the health effects of social capital, and the emergence of COVID-19. This engaging introduction to social epidemiology will be indispensable reading for all students and scholars of medical sociology, especially those with the courage to confront the possibility that society really does make people sick.

Health psychology is the scientific study of psychological processes related to health and health care. Although the field is only 25 years old, it has burgeoned into a major scientific and clinical discipline. Health psychology has excellent scientific journals, thousands of scientists and practitioners, and many students. Yet, there has not been a sufficient statement or explication of the foundational concepts upon which this flourishing field is built. Foundations of Health Psychology brings together top experts to provide a much-needed conceptual base for this rapidly expanding field. Rather than take a medical model approach, the volume examines health psychology from a theoretical, conceptual, and psychological perspective. After presenting an overview of the field's history and methods, the contributors address core concepts of the biopsychosocial approach to health and then discuss applications to health promotion and illness prevention and treatment. Providing a deep understanding of the intellectual foundations of health psychology, this volume will be invaluable for both new and experienced researchers, as well as students and other scholars seeking a firm basis for successful research and practice.

Twelve chapters, portraying diverse aspects of the contemporary Korean families and showing how they have come to have their current shapes