Media contact: Yvonne Taunton
Four faculty members and an emeritus professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham are serving on the editorial boards for the Journal of Health and Social Behavior and Society and Mental Health, both leading medical sociology journals within the field.
The Journal of Health and Social Behavior publishes and discusses empirical and theoretical articles that apply sociological concepts and methods to the understanding of health and the organization of health care.
The deputy editor of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior is William Cockerham, Ph.D., professor emeritus within the UAB Department of Sociology. Cockerham served as the chair for the department and was the director of the UAB Center for Social Medicine. His research interests include health-related lifestyle patterns in diverse populations.
Two faculty members on the editorial board are Cindy L. Cain, Ph.D., assistant professor, and Mieke Beth Thomeer, Ph.D., associate professor. Cain is interested in how the meaningfulness of health care work affects workers and is shaped by the organizational context. Thomeer’s past studies have considered how one person’s depression can impact the mental health of the spouse and how parenthood can change health habits.
Society and Mental Health is published three times a year and includes innovative peer-reviewed research and theories that link social structure and sociocultural processes with mental health in society. Both Patricia Drentea, Ph.D., professor and the director of Graduate Studies for Sociology at UAB, and Verna M. Keith, Ph.D., professor and sociology chair, serve on the editorial board.
Drentrea is interested in how inequality affects physical and mental health. Keith’s research focuses on health inequalities, stressors and health, social demography, and race and ethnicity.
“It’s highly unusual for a single department to be so well-represented among industry publications,” Keith said. “These journals represent the Medical Sociology and Mental Health sections of the national organization, the American Sociological Association. Representation on these boards delivers the message that the department and UAB are playing a leadership role in medical sociology.”