The New Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology [electronic resource]

The most thorough major academic textbook available, this classic text presents the most important research studies in the field. The author also integrates engaging first-person accounts from patients, physicians, and other health care providers throughout the text. A much greater number of first person accounts and updated examples are added to the new fourteenth edition. Other updates include: * Coverage of Zika, Ebola, MERS, and updates on other pandemics * Expanded discussion of obesity as a disease * Coverage of the widening gap in life expectancy between the rich and the poor * New information on the decline of life expectancy among American white women, especially those who live in rural counties * New material on biomarkers, gene-environment interaction, and stress * Analysis of the role of the hidden curriculum in medical schools * Exiting the Affordable Care Act