This course focuses on recent changes in health care policy and in the organization of medicine with special attention to the impact of these changes on the delivery, distribution, and quality of health services. This course highlights the role of the social sciences in dealing with problems of health care practice, focusing on research contributions to health maintenance, prevention, treatment, and quality of care. Topics include the nature and goals of client-practitioner relationships, health education, behavioral and psychosomatic medicine, and the linkages between social problems and medical problems. This course examines the social nature of crime. The various theories are examined through an extensive review of recent empirical studies.
Special attention is given to methodological problems in specifying theories for empirical study.
Discussion topics also include the adaptability of these theories to social policy and their varying political and social acceptability during particular historical periods. This seminar focuses on responses to crime. As individual citizens and as a community, we respond to crime in a variety of ways. Independent study projects are expected to make an important contribution to a students training in applied sociology. All projects are under the supervision of a faculty advisor, who is responsible for guiding and evaluating the students work.