Using the life course perspective, we assess the “resources” and “risks” to mental health associated with transitions in religious attendance between early life and midlife and how this process may be influenced by education. Drawing on over 35 years of prospective panel data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, baseline models suggest that stable, frequent attendance accumulated between

Most Vietnamese young adults who experienced the American War were exposed to war-related violence, which can exert a lifelong impact. We analyze survey data collected among northern and central Vietnamese older adults in the 2018 Vietnam Health and Aging Study (N = 2,447) to examine the association between various war traumas, psychological distress, and suicidal ideation. Informed by life course

Recent shifts in the abortion provision landscape have generated increased concern about how people find abortion care as regulations make abortion less accessible and clinics close. Few studies examine the reasons that people select particular facilities in such constrained contexts. Drawing from interviews with 41 Ohio residents, we find that people’s clinic selections are influenced by the risks

Racial-ethnic disparities in adolescent sexual risk behavior are associated with health disparities during adulthood and are therefore important to understand. Some scholars argue that neighborhood disadvantage induces disparities, yet prior research is mixed. We extend neighborhood-effects research by addressing long-term exposure to neighborhood disadvantage and estimation bias resulting from inclusion

A central paradox in the mental health literature is the tendency for black Americans to report similar or better mental health than white Americans despite experiencing greater stress exposure. However, black Americans’ higher levels of certain coping resources may explain this finding. Using data from the Nashville Stress and Health Study (n = 1,186), we examine whether black Americans have higher

At the center of the COVID-19 pandemic lies a ubiquitous feature of medicine. Medicine is permeated with ignorance. Seizing this moment to assess the current state of medical sociology, this article articulates a sociology of medical ignorance. We join insights from earlier medical sociological scholarship on uncertainty with emerging research in the sociology of ignorance to help make sense of the

Research on biological embedding of the social environment has been expedited by increased availability of biomarkers. Recently, this arsenal of measures has been expanded to include epigenetic clocks that indicate in years the extent to which an individual is older or younger than their chronological age. These measures of biological aging, especially GrimAge, are robust predictors of both illness

In his account of the medical profession’s ascent, Paul Starr drew a distinction between the social authority of physicians and the cultural authority of medicine—between doctors’ capacity to direct others’ behavior and the ability of medical institutions and discourses to shape meanings of illness, health, wellness, and treatment. Subsequently, scholars have reflected on the social-structural transformations

Recent trends in U.S. health have been mixed, with improvements among some groups and geographic areas alongside declines among others. Medical sociologists have contributed to the understanding of those disparate trends, although important questions remain. In this article, we review trends since the 1980s in key indicators of U.S. health and weigh evidence from the last decade on their causes. To

Research on the social dimensions of health and health care among sexual and gender minorities (SGMs) has grown rapidly in the last two decades. However, a comprehensive review of the extant interdisciplinary scholarship on SGM health has yet to be written. In response, we offer a synthesis of recent scholarship. We discuss major empirical findings and theoretical implications of health care utilization

From 1940 to 1980, studies of medical education were foundational to sociology, but attention shifted away from medical training in the late 1980s. Recently, there has been a marked return to this once pivotal topic, reflecting new questions and stakes. This article traces this resurgence by reviewing recent substantive research trends and setting the agenda for future research. We summarize four current

The concept of health lifestyles is moving scholarship beyond individual health behaviors to integrated bundles of behaviors undergirded by group-based identities and norms. Health lifestyles research merges structure with agency, individual-level processes with group-level processes, and multifaceted behaviors with norms and identities, shedding light on why health behaviors persist or change and

We identify a gap in health inequalities research that sociologists are particularly well situated to fill—an underrepresentation of research on the role advantaged groups play in creating inequalities. We name the process that creates the imbalance health-inequality diversions. We gathered evidence from awarded grants (349), major health-related data sets (7), research articles (324), and Healthy

The 2010 special issue of Journal of Health and Social Behavior, titled “Fifty Years of Medical Sociology,” defined the contours of the medical sociological perspective. We use this as a backdrop to outline and assess the continued integration of genetics into medical sociology research. We contend that the explosion of genetic and epigenetic data in population health data sources has made the medical

This article advances the field by integrating insights from intersectionality perspectives with the emerging literatures on structural racism and structural sexism—which point to promising new ways to measure systems of inequality at a macro level—to introduce a structural intersectionality approach to population health. We demonstrate an application of structural intersectionality using administrative

The research tradition on social relationships, social networks, and health dates back to the beginning of sociology. As exemplified in the classic work of Durkheim, Simmel, and Tönnies, social relationships and social networks play a double-edged—protective and detrimental—role for health. However, this double-edged role has been given unbalanced attention. In comparison to the salubrious role, the

Chronic pain is a common, costly, and consequential health problem. However, despite some important analytic contributions, sociological research on pain has not yet coalesced into a unified subfield. We present three interrelated bodies of evidence and illustrative new empirical findings using 2010 to 2018 National Health Interview Survey data to argue that pain should have a central role in sociological

Adults with disability have significantly lower rates of labor force participation relative to persons without disability, although it is unclear whether this disparity extends to subjective workplace experiences. Using data from the 2004 to 2006 wave of the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (n =2,030), we evaluate: (1) whether U.S. workers with physical disability report

We detail the implications of sociogenomics for social determinants research. We focus on education and race because of how early twentieth-century scientific eugenic thinking facilitated a range of racist and eugenic policies, most of which helped justify and pattern racial and educational morbidity and mortality disparities that remain today, and are central to sociological research. Consequently

Medical sociologists and sociologists of disability study similar topics but, because of competing or conflicting theoretical paradigms, tend to arrive at different conclusions, engage with different audiences, and pursue different directions for social change. Despite diverging trajectories over the past 20 years, however, there remains clear potential overlap between both subfields in the study of

Research shows that John Henryism, a high-effort, active coping style, is associated with poor physical health, whereas others suggest it may be psychologically beneficial. As such, it is unclear whether John Henryism represents a health risk or resource for black Americans and whether its impact varies across sociodemographic and gender groups. The present study used data from a representative community

Abortion work has changed in the decades since Roe v. Wade, and concerns over efficiency and cost reduction have resulted in increased specialization and compartmentalization of duties among health workers. This study examines the current state of surgical abortion at a clinic in southern California. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork at an abortion clinic, I use theories of dirty work

Parental depression constricts children’s development, but the mechanisms implicated—beyond daily parenting tactics—remain unknown. Today, parents must evaluate and select environmental contexts for child-rearing within increasingly complex residential and educational markets. Depression may hamper parents’ abilities to navigate this terrain, constraining information collection and impairing child-oriented

Prior research reveals that negative early-life experiences play a major role in the development of obesity in later life, but few studies identify mechanisms that alter the lifetime risk of obesity. This study examines the influence of negative childhood experiences on body mass index (BMI) and obesity (BMI ≥30) during older adulthood and the psychosocial and behavioral pathways involved. Using a

There is a wealth of literature demonstrating the presence of bias throughout the American health care system. Despite acknowledging such presence, however, little is known about how bias functions within medical encounters, particularly how providers grapple with bias in their patient counseling and decision-making. We explore such processes through the case of contraceptive counseling, a highly raced

The COVID-19 pandemic has coincided with a powerful upsurge in antiracist activism in the United States, linking many forms and consequences of racism to public and environmental health. This commentary develops the concept of eco-pandemic injustice to explain interrelationships between the pandemic and socioecological systems, demonstrating how COVID-19 both reveals and deepens structural inequalities

Utilizing data from a cross-sectional community survey of 455 heterosexual couples in which at least one partner has a physical disability, we examine the associations between stigma and psychological distress for both partners. We also assess whether these associations are moderated by gender. Findings from an actor-partner interdependence model analysis reveal that personally experienced stigma and

Race-ethnic disparities in birth outcomes are well established, and new research suggests that there may also be important sexual identity disparities in birth weight and preterm birth. This study uses the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health and is the first to examine disparities in birth outcomes at the intersection of race-ethnicity and sexual identity. We use ordinary least

This study aims to understand vaccine skepticism among a population where it is remarkably prevalent—more-educated Dutch parents—through 31 in-depth interviews. Whereas all respondents ascribe a central role to the individual in obtaining knowledge (i.e., individualist epistemology), this is expressed in two repertoires. A neoromantic one focuses on deriving truth through intuition and following a

Socioeconomic and health disadvantages can emerge early in the life course, making adolescence a key period to examine the association between socioeconomic status and health. Past research on obesity in adolescence has focused on family measures of socioeconomic status, overlooking the role of individual-level nascent indicators of socioeconomic disadvantage. Using measured height and weight from

Mental health outcomes have shown dramatic changes over the past half-century, yet these trends are still underexplored. I utilize an age-period-cohort analysis of the National Health Interview Survey from 1997 to 2017 (N = 627,058) to disentangle trends in mental health outcomes in the United States over time. Specifically, I leverage the contrast between reported psychological distress and rates

Colen, Cynthia G., Li, Qi, Reczek, Corinne, and David R. Williams. 2019. “The Intergenerational Transmission of Discrimination: Children’s Experiences of Unfair Treatment and Their Mothers’ Health at Midlife.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 60(4):474–492.

Ample research suggests that the links between higher education and heath are robust and growing in strength. This research, however, tends to assume education was completed prior to assuming other adult roles. Importantly, the life course framework raises the question of whether “out-of-sequence” college completion conveys similar health returns. I investigate this question among a population for

This study uses nationally representative data to extend a steadily growing body of research on the health consequences of skin color by comparatively examining the consequences of perceived ingroup and outgroup skin color discrimination (perceived colorism) for physical health among African Americans. Using a comprehensive set of measures of physical health, I find that perceived ingroup colorism

We use a perceptual control model of identity to examine the relationship between stigmatized appraisals (from self and other) and well-being among individuals with serious mental illness. We also examine the role of stigma resistance strategies in the identity process. Using in-depth interviews with active clients of a community mental health center (N = 156), we find that deflection, or distancing

Socioeconomic disadvantage and disorder in the residential neighborhood have been linked to multiple health risks, but less is known about the relevance of other spaces of daily life. This article considers whether disadvantage and disorder in the immediate context—within or outside of the residential neighborhood—is associated with physiological symptoms indicative of stress and strain. We use data

This article argues that the COVID-19 pandemic and associated social distancing measures intended to slow the rate of transmission of the virus resulted in greater subjective isolation and community distrust, in turn adversely impacting psychological distress. To support this argument, we examine data from the Canadian Quality of Work and Economic Life Study, two national surveys of Canadian workers—one

We investigate whether childhood exposures influence adult chronic inflammation and mortality risk via adult health characteristics and socioeconomic status (SES) and whether gender moderates these relationships. Analyzing a longitudinal national sample of 9,310 men and women over age 50, we found that childhood SES, parental behaviors, and adolescent behaviors were associated with adult chronic inflammation

Existing research on the life course origins of adult health has extensively examined the influence of childhood socioeconomic conditions, family structure, and exposure to trauma. Left unexplored are the potential long-term health effects of sociocultural exposures, such as religiosity at earlier phases of the life course. Integrating life course models of health with literature on the health-protective

Violence is a leading cause of death among U.S. adults under age 45. There are also 3.3 million living violence victims, most of whom forgo formal health care when injured. We developed and tested a framework to understand why. We argue that violence victims must consider their need for care and three situational factors of victimization that may serve as barriers for care seeking: the victim’s relationship

Researchers and practitioners often extol the health benefits of social relationships and social participation for older adults. Yet they often ignore how these same bonds and activities may contribute to negative health behaviors. Using data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (16,065 observations from 7,007 respondents), we examined how family characteristics, family history, and social participation

Peer connections in adolescence shape mental health in ways that differ by gender. However, it is unclear whether this association has an enduring impact on life course mental health. Using growth models with survey data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health Waves I–IV, N = 13,821, 51% white, 49% male), we examine how two dimensions of social integration during

Using egocentric network data from the University of California Social Networks Study (1,136 respondents; 11,536 alters), this study examines how difficult ties—an unexplored form of social negativity—are associated with well-being. Findings show that well-being is affected by the quality of the relationship rather than its presence in the network. Having a nondifficult partner is associated with lower

Using interviews and ethnography started in 2016 in rural and urban Kansas, we examine the consequences of an amplified immigration enforcement combined with a local limited health care infrastructure that reproduce legal violence manifesting on Latina immigrants’ health, access to care, and community participation. We highlight the conditions rooted in place that generate short- and long-term negative

Despite engagement with the construct of power relations, research on the political economy of health has largely overlooked organized labor as a determinant of well-being. Grounded in the theory of power resources, our study aims to fill this gap by investigating the link between country-level union density and mental health while accounting for the compositional effects of individual-level union

For full text of the paper go to: http://www.asanet.org/journals/jhsb

The patient–doctor interaction has changed profoundly in the past decades. In reaction to paternalistic communication patterns, health policy makers have advocated for patient-centered care and shared decision-making. Although these models of medical communication remain still aspirational, patients have become more engaged in advocating for their own health in encounters with physicians. I argue that

The stress associated with work-to-family conflict (WFC) and family-to-work conflict (FWC) is well documented. However, surprisingly little is known about the resources that moderate the effects of work–family conflict on health over time. Using four waves of panel data from the Canadian Work, Stress, and Health Study (2011–2017; n = 11,349 person-wave observations), we compare how a core psychosocial

This study proposes that visa status is an important construct that is central to understanding how health selection occurs among immigrants. We used the 2017 baseline survey data of the Health of Philippine Emigrants Study (n = 1,632) to compare the health of nonmigrants remaining in the Philippines and migrants surveyed prior to migration to the United States. Furthermore, we compared migrant health

The current study examines whether the extent of macrolevel gender inequality affects the association between women’s educational attainment and their participation in cervical and breast cancer screening and how this relationship is moderated by a country’s cancer screening strategy (organized vs. opportunistic). A multilevel design with women (Ncervical = 99,794; Nbreast = 55,021) nested in 30 European

The demand-side perspective argues that the drug overdose epidemic is a consequence of changes in the economy that leave behind working-class people who lack a college education. In contrast, the supply-side perspective maintains that the epidemic is primarily due to changes in the licit and illicit drug environment, whereas a third, distinct perspective argues that income inequality is likely a key

Despite increased attention to the links between the criminal justice system and health, how criminal justice contacts shape health and contribute to racial health disparities remains to be better understood. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (N = 5,488) and several analytic techniques—including a quasi-treatment–control design, treatment-weighting procedures

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most commonly diagnosed mental health disorder among U.S. children. Diagnosis can bring positives, like proper treatment, extra testing time, and social support, but may also trigger negatives, like stigmatization. Although rates of diagnosis are high across socioeconomic status (SES) groups, the balance of positive and negative consequences of