The Social Causes of Health and Disease

This masterful guide to the social determinants of health has become a go-to text for understanding the role that social factors play in the experience of health and many diseases. In this updated edition, preeminent medical sociologist William C. Cockerham offers the most compelling case yet that stress, poverty, unhealthy lifestyles, and adverse living and working conditions can all be directly associated with illness.

Looking beyond individual explanations for health and disease, Cockerham marshals evidence and theory for those seeking a clear and authoritative overview of the social causes of health and illness. Of particular note in this revised edition are: updates on the power of social class to determine a person’s health and life span; deeper consideration of how the social construction of race matters for a person’s physical and mental health; new research on the role of lifestyles as a social determinant of health; and an analysis of the differential impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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.

William C. Cockerham is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Chair Emeritus at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Research Scholar of Sociology at the College of William & Mary in Virginia.