Healthy Outlook Division of Health, Health Policy and Health Services of the Society for the Study of Social Problems Fall 2010/Winter 2011 Inside this issue: Statement from 1 Co-Chair Student Paper 2 Competition 2011 Conference 2-3 News of Note 4-5 Call for 5 Nominations Statement from the Co-Chair Elizabeth Gage I am very excited to be taking on the role of co-chair of the Health, Health Policy, and Health Services Division of SSSP, and I am extremely appreciative of past Division co-chairs for their substantial effort in building a strong and committed membership. Edna Viruell-Fuentes and Debi Street’s work last year culminated in a vibrant series of Division sessions at the annual meeting and tremendous participation at Division networking and business events. Debi and I look forward to continuing that momentum. With the extensive debate surrounding health care reform in the US, the issue of access to health care has been in the forefront of American political and social commentary. Amid this popular attention on health policy and health care reform there is a great opportunity to refocus the debate and encourage reflection on what access to health and health care truly means. Our Division members have a lot to offer to this discussion. Of course, finances and ability to pay for care are major components of access, but only one piece of the puzzle. As the scholarship of our colleagues shows, meanings of health, culture, health care policy, structuring of health care, social stratification and a host of other multi-level factors all have important implications for determining access to health and health care. Our Division sponsored sessions will take on these issues, among others, at this year’s annual meeting. Our Division sessions for the 2010 annual meeting take inspiration from SSSP President A. Javier Treviño’s focus on service sociology, and will offer multiple interpretations and perspectives of service sociology as it is related to health and health services. Our Division is sponsoring several sessions planned to explore issues related to culture and health, meanings of health, health disparities, health reform, and the social construction of health risk, among others. We are also sponsoring research roundtable discussions that will provide a forum for discussion of research that is related to health, but not topically linked to our planned panel sessions. Please consider submitting your work for presentation in one of the Division’s sessions at the SSSP Annual Meeting. We also encourage all graduate students to submit a paper to our Graduate Student Paper Competition. Please note that the deadline for submissions is January 31, 2010. Graduate Student Paper Competition HEALTH, HEALTH POLICY, AND HEALTH SERVICES Deadline: 5/1/11 The Health, Health Policy, and Health Services Division invites all graduate students to apply for this annual paper award competition. The paper should be related to the broad Division interest, including health and illness, health policy, and health services. The paper submission should not exceed 30 double-spaced pages and should be prepared for anonymous review (with the author specified on a title page but not referred to in other parts of the text). Current graduate students and recent graduates (who received their degrees after January 2010) may submit a paper if it was written while still a student. Papers based on theses or dissertations are acceptable. (Please do not submit the thesis or dissertation itself.) Co-authored papers are acceptable as long as all the listed authors are current graduate students. Double submission to other SSSP award competitions will be disqualified. The award recipient will be required to present the winning paper at the 2011 SSSP Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL. Thus it is strongly recommended that an abstract of the paper be submitted to any Health Division session organizer or the roundtable organizer by the January 31st deadline. The recipient will receive a monetary prize of $100, student membership to SSSP, SSSP conference registration, and a ticket to the SSSP awards banquet. Send an electronic copy of the paper (in Word format) and a cover letter identifying your graduate program to: Professor Elizabeth Gage, eagage@buffalo.edu . 2011 Conference: Chicago, August 12-14 Renaissance Blackstone Chicago Hotel 636 South Michigan Avenue Chicago, IL See the full 2011 Call for Papers at the SSSP website: http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/390/pageid/1430/fuseaction/ssspsession2.publicView For paper competitions and scholarship awards, see: http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/296 Debra Street Division Co-Chair The State University of New York at Buffalo dastreet@buffalo.edu Elizabeth Gage Division Co-Chair The State University of New York at Buffalo eagage@buffalo.edu 2011 Conference Sessions Health, Health Policy, and Health Services Division Society for the Study of Social Problems Proposed Sessions for the 2011 Annual Meeting Theme: Service Sociology Thematic Sessions Health Services and Health Disparities Organizer: Elizabeth Gage, eagage@buffalo.edu Moving Communities Organizer: Elise Paradis, eparadis@stanford.edu Division Roundtables Health, Health Policy, and Health Services Tables in the Round Organizer: Debra Street, dastreet@buffalo.edu Division Sessions Scholar Activism and Community Health (co-sponsored with Community Research and Development) Organizers: Barbara Gurr, barbara.gurr@uconn.edu Sue Bell, sue.bell@mnsu.edu Reproductive Health: Current Issues and Prospectives for Change (co-sponsored with Family) Organizers: Miranda R. Waggoner, waggoner@brandeis.edu Arthur L. Greil, fgreil@alfred.edu Culture and Health Organizer: Mary A. Matteliano, mmatte@buffalo.edu Institutional Ethnography and the Social Organization of Health Care (co-sponsored with Institutional Ethnography) Organizer: Laurie A. Clune, lclune@ryerson.ca Sociological Perspectives on Health Reform (co-sponsored with Law and Society) Organizer: Debra Street, dastreet@buffalo.edu Meanings of Health (co-sponsored with Sport, Leisure, and the Body) Organizer: Christina E. Barmon, cebarmon@gmail.com Youth, Health, and the Social Construction of Risk (co-sponsored with Youth, Aging, and the Life Course) Organizer: Tamara Leech, tleech@iupui.edu News of Note! Ophra Leyser-Whalen, PhD from the University of Kansas, accepted a Postdoctoral Research Fellow position with the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Women's Health and Dept. of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Stephen J. Morewitz's book, Death Threats and Violence. New Research and Clinical Perspectives (New York: Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 2008), was discussed at an Author Meets Critics Session of the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology in San Francisco, CA, November 17, 2010. Miranda Waggoner received an NSF dissertation improvement grant for her project “The Emergence of Preconception Care: 1980-2010.” MEMBER PUBLICATIONS Several Division members are featured authors in the extra issue of Journal of Health and Social Behavior, “Key Findings from 50 Years of Medical Sociology,” including Monica Casper, Peter Conrad, Janet Hankin, Daniel Morrison, and Peggy Thoits. This extra issue engages policy and thus is likely particularly relevant to Division members. Chapters by Division members, including Peter Conrad and Gary Albrecht, are also in the new edition of The Handbook of Medical Sociology (6th edition, Vanderbilt University Press, 2010), edited by Chloe Bird, Peter Conrad, Allen Fremont, and Stefan Timmermans. Lori Baralt and Sabrina McCormick. 2010. "A Review of Advocate-Scientist Collaboration in Federally-Funded Environmental Breast Cancer Research Centers". Environmental Health Perspectives 118(12). Division member Peter Conrad has a co-authored chapter with Cheryl Stults in THE RISKS OF PRESCRIPTION DRUGS, edited by Donald Light (Columbia University Press, 2010). Antwan Jones (with Gulbis, A., & Baker, E. H.). 2010. “Differences in tobacco use between Canada and the United States.” The International Journal of Public Health 55(3): 167-175. This study explores differences in who smokes (smoker type) and exposure to smoking (pack-years) between Canada and the US. Laura Lorenz has several new publications: Lorenz, L.S. 2010. Discovering a new identity. Sociology of Health and Illness, 32(6): 862-879 Lorenz, L.S. 2010 (December). Visual metaphors of living with brain injury: Exploring and communicating lived experience with an invisible injury. Visual Studies, 25(3), 210-223. Lorenz, L.S., & Chilingerian, J. A. 2010 (November). Using visual and narrative methods to achieve fair process in clinical care. Journal of Visualized Experiments. http://www.jove.com/index/Details.stp?ID=2342 Also, for those who would like to learn more about photovoice as a research method, a 2-hour Clinical and Transitional Seminar Laura Lorenz did for the University of Nebraska Medical Center in July is available online (SKIP to 4:15 in the video to start!): Talking with Pictures: Fostering Dialogue and Hope in Health and Community (clickable) Eileen T. Walsh (with Berna M. Torr and Bonnie Ha Bui). 2010 (Forthcoming). “Inequalities in Self-Rated Health: Untangling Ethnicity, Social Class, and Lifestyle Effects on Vietnamese, Other Asians, Hispanics, and Whites.” International Review of Modern Sociology. CONGRATULATIONS! Please send News to: Miranda Waggoner waggoner@brandeis.edu MORE NEWS! University at Buffalo Occupational Therapy Graduate Students Advocate for the Profession on Capitol Hill On Monday, September 20, 2010, over 400 occupational therapists, occupational therapy assistants, and occupational therapy students attended the American Occupational Therapy’s (AOTA) Capitol Hill day in Washington, DC. Among the 400 people were five graduate students representing the Occupational Therapy Department from the University at Buffalo. Keara Savage, Allison Landry, Amanda Weinberg, Maureen Jones, and James Christman took part in the largest gathering for AOTA’s Capitol Hill Day in history. After a brief introduction ceremony with members of AOTA, the students met with the senator’s office from Vermont and New York in addition to local congressmen from Erie County. Topics discussed included the extension of the bill to prevent the Medicare cap on therapy as proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for therapeutic services. In addition, students focused on describing occupational therapy’s role in the changing health care environment, including areas of primary care, prevention, and community-based therapy. Students planned meetings with four representatives of legislator’s offices, including Senator Kristen Gillibrand’s and Senator Charles Schumer’s offices from New York State and attended two of the four meetings alongside the New York State Occupational Therapy Association’s (NYSOTA) legislative chair, Jeff Tomlinson. During the last meeting of the day with Senator Charles Schumer’s office, the students represented occupational therapy along with Florence Clark, president of AOTA. University at Buffalo occupational therapy students have definitely made the voices of practitioners in New York heard on Capitol Hill about the role of occupational therapy in the changing health care world. More recently, during the first weekend in November, sixteen students from the UB occupational therapy BS/MS class of 2011 attended the NBCOT/AOTA National Student Conclave in Louisville, KY alongside 500 OT and OTA students from programs throughout the country. Call for Division Nominations We are currently soliciting nominations for the position of Co-Chair for the Health, Health Services and Health Policy Division. Co-Chairs serve overlapping two year terms, and are jointly responsible for: developing the Division program (identifying sessions and organizers) for the annual meeting; running the Division business meeting at the annual meeting; working with the newsletter editor to assure publication of the annual newsletter; and other Division business. Tenure begins at the annual meeting in summer 2011. If you are interested in learning more or in nominating yourself or another individual for this rewarding position, please contact Debi Street at dastreet@buffalo.edu for further information. More details… Chairpersons are elected for two years. No Division Chairperson can serve for more than three consecutive years. Self nominations are acceptable. If you are nominated, the Executive Office will contact you to request your biographical information and statement prior to the elections. Names of nominees must be submitted to the Executive Office no later than June 1, so please contact us soon if you wish to nominate someone, or to nominate yourself. The election process is handled by the Executive Office. Election procedures will insure to all members of the Division an opportunity to vote in the election. A majority of votes cast will be necessary to elect any Division Officer. If there are more nominees for an office and there is not a clear majority, a run-off election will be held between the two candidates receiving the most votes. The same election procedures described above will be followed for the run-off election.