Graduate Studies in Sociology of Health/Mental Health

 

A student selecting a Ph.D. concentration in the Sociology of Health/Mental Health/Substance Use can specialize in one of three related areas or construct a study plan that draws significantly from each.

Specializing in Sociology of Health involves the examination of social phenomena related to health and illness, the social organization of health care delivery, and differential access to medical resources.

The Sociology of Mental Health specialty considers issues ranging from serious mental disorders to subjective indicators of quality of life.  The emphasis is on research and theory pertaining to social epidemiology and mental health functioning.

Students who complete a concentration in this program will have a broad understanding of theory and research on health, mental health, and substance abuse.  Faculty research projects provide student with training and opportunities to work on research across racial and cultural groups.  The program provides comprehensive training in quantitative survey methods and statistical techniques appropriate to social epidemiology.  Department faculty have expertise in historical research methods and qualitative methods training is available.

Research Opportunities

• Several large national and regional longitudinal studies on health related topics provide a strong base funding for research opportunities for students.  Students are encouraged to do independent or collaborative research leading to publication in addition to required thesis and dissertation projects.
• The Sociology Department’s Bureau of Sociological Research is a survey research organization equipped with state-of-the-art computer technology.  Students gain hands-on experience, participate in bureau projects, and benefit from Bureau staff and facilities to conduct their own research projects

Affiliated Faculty

Eleven of the Sociology faculty have research interests in the Sociology of Health.  Several studies emphasize research that directly addresses cultural and racial dimensions of social epidemiology, culturally specific risk and protective factors, and the application of this knowledge to the development and testing of intervention and prevention programs.  This area of strength contributed to the affiliated faculty currently having grants funded by the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH), The National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), the National Institute of Child and Human Development (NICHD) as well as seed grants funded by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and contracts supported by the Bureau of Sociological Research. Combined, the research funding associated with these efforts is nearly three million dollars per year. 

Miguel A. Carranza, Associate Professor (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame), studies health outcomes and disparities in the Latino community.  He is one of the co-investigators on the funded Latino Research Initiative project.

Miguel Ceballos, Assistant Professor (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison), is interested in studying demography and sociology of Latino health.  He particularly focuses on the relationship between health disparities and the process of migration and acculturation among ethnic minority populations in the United States. Currently, he is analyzing the effects of acculturation on Latino maternal and infant health using a NSF funded survey.

Jacob E. Cheadle, Assistant Professor (Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University), studies childhood health and adolescent health-risk behaviors. He currently has three evolving research streams. First, Dr. Cheadle is interested in childhood health conditions like birth weight and the consequences for intellectual achievement and status attainment. The second set of projects links background risk factors to developmental trajectories of deviance, marijuana, and alcohol use amongst American Indian Youth. Finally, Dr. Cheadle is currently working on developing models incorporating biological measures (e.g., testosterone) into social network studies of adolescent health-risk behaviors. Dr. Cheadle is a former Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Research Scholar and his published works have appeared in Social Forces, Sociology of Education, The Journal of Marriage and the Family, Sociological Methodology, and the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness.

Mary Jo Deegan, Professor (Ph.D., University of Chicago), conducts research on disabilities.  She is an experienced qualitative methodologist and offers seminars in qualitative and historical research methods.

Christina D. Falci, Assistant Professor (Ph.D., University of Minnesota), studies the social determinants of mental health and health disparities across diverse populations. She focuses on the effects of peer networks and family structure on adolescent mental health. She was awarded the Maude Hammond Fling Faculty Research Fellowship for faculty research in the fall of 2006 to support a graduate research assistant for a project on family structure, adolescent health, and propensity score matching.

Bridget J. Goosby, Assistant Professor ( Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University), is interested in the intergenerational transfer of mental and physical health between adults and their children. Specifically, she is interested in how mental and physical health disparities are perpetuated through stressful contexts and manifested in families with special attention paid to African American families. Her work has appeared in Social Forces and the Journal of Family Issues.

Kellie J. Hagewen, Assistant Professor (Ph.D., Duke University), has research interests in health and mental health outcomes as well as health care access and utilization among elderly Mexican-Americans. She has taught several classes on minority health at the undergraduate and graduate level.

Dan R. Hoyt, Professor (Ph.D., University of Nebraska-Lincoln), is co-investigator on studies of the mental health of homeless and runaway youth and on early risk factors among American Indian Populations.

Julia McQuillan, Assistant Professor (Ph.D. University of Connecticut), has research interests in gender, mental health and the effects of chronic illnesses.  She is co-investigator of a NICHD grant to study social and behavioral consequences of infertility.  She is a quantitative methodologist who teaches basic and advanced graduate statistics seminars. She serves as the current Director of the Bureau of Sociological Research which also conducts a number of health and substance use surveys.

Kimberly A. Tyler, Assistant Professor (Ph.D., Iowa State University), was recently awarded a K01 career development award from NIMH to examine pathways to early adult homelessness.  She has also just submitted a grant to examine the mental health risks associated with young adult’s transition from foster care.

Les Whitbeck, Professor (Ph.D., Washington State University), is principal investigator on a longitudinal study of the mental health consequences for homeless and runaway youth (NIMH), two studies of adolescent risk factors among American Indian youth (NIDA, NIMH), and a developmental grant for modification of a culturally specific alcohol prevention program for American Indian youth (NIDA).  He is also principal investigator on a grant proposal submitted to develop a center for behavioral health research among minority populations.

Hugh Whitt Professor (Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), has research interests in mental health, particularly suicide.  His areas of specialization include deviance and quantitative methods.