Spring 2012

Health and Health Care in a Global Society

Director: Daniel Chambliss, Professor of Sociology
315-859-4291
Email: dchambli@hamilton.edu

In a globalizing society of weakening national borders, health and disease are increasingly transnational phenomena: new diseases can spread rapidly, and national health care practices have worldwide implications. We will study questions of health and health care both in America and globally, using New York City as a resource for learning about these issues. Two courses will be offered, one taught by Dr. Susan Morgan on global epidemics, the other by Prof. Chambliss on health care. Internship and Independent Study may focus on topics other than health and health care.

Prerequisites: A background in social science or the pre-health profession sciences will be very helpful, but are not required; consent of the Director is required. Sociology concentrators and minors may receive up to two credits toward their concentration or minor.

College 398 Globalization and Disease

Using Pulitzer Prize-winner Laurie Garrett’s The Coming Plague as a framework, this is a social/political/biological study of the eruptions of new and perennial infectious agents around the world: malaria, HIV, Ebola and Marburg viruses, SARS, cholera, and mad cow disease all will be included, to present a potentially disastrous public health challenge of global proportions. The biology of disease is central to the course, but no background is necessary.

College 396 Independent Study

A tutorial resulting in a substantial paper (30 pp) that integrates experience and learning from the internship with an academic perspective and knowledge gained in the seminars or other tutorial readings.

College 397 Internship

Work experience during four days a week that includes a journal or written account of that experience.

Sociology 395 Sociology of Health Care

A comprehensive sociological overview of health care, especially in the U.S. but expanding to international comparisons; topics include sociology of illness, medicalization, professionalism in medicine and nursing, the financing of health care, and the role of government in health care. Chambliss.