Soc 401: Health & Illness Syllabus

Course Syllabus:  Syllabus PDF

Meet Your Instructor:  

Giana Cicchelli holds a BA in Sociology from UC Santa Cruz (Go Banana Slugs!) and an MA in Sociology from Cal State Fullerton with an emphasis in religion. Cicchelli's Master's thesis was focused on modern witchcraft and shamanism. Having also graduated from Fullerton College, she is very familiar with the needs of community college students.
     Professor Cicchelli's research interests include religion, gender, sexuality, feminism, and privilege. Giana loves to travel and go on wild adventures whenever she is able, otherwise in her spare time she is a painter, yoga practitioner, writer, and professional mystic.

Course Description: 

This course analyzes the social contexts of health, illness, and organized medical care. It examines empirical research and theory of the changing concepts of health, illness and medical practice in their socio-historical contexts. Topics will include: social epidemiology, the biomedical and social construction of health/illness, the experience of illness, the historical transformation of the health professions and the health workforce, disparities in health care, medical technology, global comparisons of health care and health care reform.

Textbook Information:  

MEDICINE AS CULTURE : ILLNESS DISEASE & THE BODY, Author: LUPTON

ISBN: 978-1-446208-95-3

Course Learning Objectives: 

• Identify and explain the major historical factors that led to the development of medical sociology as a subfield of sociology and explain how this perspective can be applied to the study of health, illness, and healing.

• Explain how social factors such as social class, race/ethnicity, and gender influence health outcomes as measured by epidemiologists in rates of life expectancy, morbidity and mortality in the United States.
• Describe how the meaning of disability has changed in the United States and identify how social factors influence the likelihood of disability.
• Explain the process of social stress, the 5 key types of social stress and how class, race/ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation can impact social stress.
• Identify and distinguish the four dimensions of health behavior and the social factors which influence health behavior.
• Identify and analyze the most important factors that influence the assessment and experience of disease/illness.
• Identify and explain the characteristics of the medical profession, the decline of “professional dominance”, and the value orientations underlying physician training.
• Explain how chronic illness and medical technology has led to the growth and necessity of the healthcare team approach and an increasing reliance on non-physician practitioners.
• Compare and contrast the U.S. healthcare system with those of similar countries and evaluate their relative effectiveness in providing health care.

Student Learning Objectives: 

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Systematically apply sociological methods and theories to the study of health, illness, and healthcare delivery within specific and diverse communities.
• Access and analyze a range of primary (gathered via interviews, surveys, site visits, participant observation, etc.) and secondary (e.g., relevant historical and contemporary research, government data sets, public policy documents, web-based resources, etc.) data sources available to sociologists, public-health professionals, and consumers.
• Apply different sociological methods/theories to examine and interpret class materials in the context of a community-based research experience.
• Assess/Evaluate the strengths and weakness of a particular research topic or healthcare program/intervention.
• Summarize and communicate research results for diverse audiences.