SOCI 215 - Sociology of Health and Illness

(3 credits)
Prerequisite: SOCI 102 or consent of instructor
See Addenda to the 2024/2025 Catalog for changes to this course effective Spring 2025

The study of health and illness deals with questions at the root of human experience. Encounters with health and illness are individual yet also socially constructed. Responses to illness and death, attempts to control health and illness, and rituals related to human health and illness are influenced by numerous social factors including family, peers, gender, religion, race, ethnicity and our own identities. This course will help students think critically about their taken-for-granted ideas of health and illness, illuminating the connections between social structures and institutions and individual experiences. Offered alternate fall semesters. (Formerly SOCI 317)