Healthy Outlook Division of Health, Health Policy and Health Services of the Society for the Study of Social Problems Spring 2013 Statement from the Chair Dear Colleagues and Friends of the Division: ItÕs spring so it must be time to start planning to attend the 63rd SSSP Annual Meeting in New York City in August! The official SSSP hotel is the Westin New York at Times Square. The SSSP has secured a group rate at the hotel for our meeting participants. Rates (per night) are $230 for single/double; $250 triple, and $270 quad, including high-speed internet access. Rates do not include 14.75% tax + $3.50 occupancy fee. To book, modify or cancel a reservation go to: https://www.starwoodmeeting.com/Book/TheSocietyForTheStudyOfSocialProblems. ÊIf necessary, you can call the Central Reservations department at 1.888.627.7149. When you call to make your reservation please give the group name (The Society for the Study of Social Problems) to ensure you are given the correct room rate. ÊEach reservation must be guaranteed with a credit card. ÊCheck in is at 3:00pm and check-out is at 12:00pm.Ê There must be a 24 hour notice for cancellation prior to arrival. ÊAny cancellation made after this will forfeit one night room and tax. Reservations must be confirmed by Thursday, July 18, 2013 at 5pm EST (or before the room block is filled) to guarantee the rates noted above. The Health, Health Policy, and Health Services Division has an exciting set of sessions and other activities planned. Please see the complete listing below and start planning which of these sessions you will attend! Additional details (including titles and authors of papers) will be posted soon on the SSSP website in the Preliminary Program. We also will be joining with other Divisions to co-sponsor a reception in New York. The reception is a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with colleagues, make new connections with scholars and activists interested in health-related issues, and discuss opportunities for research and other types of collaboration. We invite you all to attend our Annual Division business meeting where we will plan the sessions for next yearÕs meeting, appoint members to the student paper award committee, and seek nominations for next yearÕs co-chair election. We especially invite newcomers Ð and those of you who never have attended our business meeting Ð to come. ItÕs a great way to meet other members and learn more about the work of the Division. If you are interested in organizing a session for next yearÕs meeting in San Francisco, have ideas for the Division, or would simply like to become more involved, please come and share your ideas. As we approach the Annual Meeting, more information will be made available via the DivisionÕs Facebook page. If you have not already done so, please like us at https://www.facebook.com/#!/SSSPHealth?fref=ts . Finally, we are soliciting nominations for Division Chair with a 2-year term, beginning at our August meeting (see the notice below for more details). Consider nominating yourself or someone you know! Again, I look forward to seeing all of you at our Division events in August! ---Debbie Potter Student Paper Competition The Graduate Student Paper Competition Committee, chaired by Miranda Waggoner and assisted by Barbara Gurr and Debbie Potter, is pleased to announce the winners of the competition. The Committee enjoyed reading the many well-written and meticulously-researched submissions this year. LaTonya Trotter from Princeton University has won first place for her paper entitled, "Constructing Uncertainty, Constructing Skill: Creating New Forms of Medical Expertise through Nurse Practitioner Narrative Practices.Ó Her paper was acceptedÊby the organizer of theÊsession, ÒThe Social Organization of Health Professional Education.ÓÊ Abstract: Sociologists of medicine have long investigated the intersection of physician work and the construction of patient problems. As nurse practitioners increase their presence in the exam room, our investigations may have to account for different renderings of both medical problems and our ideas about their treatment. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork among nurse-practitioners-in-training, this paper analyzes routine, formal talk about clinical cases as a way of understanding the construction of nurse practitioner expertise. A primary finding was that talk about nurse practitioner practices emphasized skills of difference from those of physicians, differences that had consequences not simply for nurse practitioner professional identity, but for notions about the practical performance of clinical work. This paper provides an empirical look at a group of overlooked clinicians whose understandings of what they do may have important implications for our understandings of both medical work and what it means to care for the sick. In addition, Kathleen Oberlin and Oren Pizmony-Levy (Indiana University-Bloomington) won honorable mention for their paper entitled "Beyond Access: Social Networks and the Use of Free Health Care Services.Ó Their paper was accepted for the Division sponsored, "Papers in the Round: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Studying Health and Inequality." Abstract: While sociologists recognize the role of socio-demographic characteristics and social networks for the utilization of health services, less is known about these factors once we move beyond the major obstacle, health insurance or the lack thereof. Further, little is known about the effect of these factors across services that differ in their complexity and demand for patient engagement, such as primary care, dental care and specialty care. To address these gaps, we use original survey data from 1,044 patients of a free health care clinic. Results suggest that social networks have significant effects on the utilization of specialty care services, but not on primary care services. Socio-demographics have limited effects on the utilization of these services at a free clinic. We discuss these results in the larger context of community organizations and free clinicsÕ important role in strengthening the broader social safety-net. News of Note * Elise Paradis has been appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. * Stacy Torres has been awarded the American Sociological Association Minority Fellowship * Siri Suh received a Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship for the 2013/2014 academic year for her dissertation titled ÒBoundaries at work: practicing abortion care at the intersection of medicine and law in Senegal.Ó * Dana Zarhin was awarded the Kreitman Postdoctoral Fellowship from Ben-Gurion University in Israel. Her host department will be the Department of Health Systems Management. Member Publications * Miranda R. Waggoner has authored ÒMotherhood Preconceived: The Emergence of the Preconception Health and Health Care InitiativeÓ in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law. 38: 345-371. * Shannon M. Monnat, has co-authored ÒDistrict and School Physical Education Policies: Implications for Physical Education and Recess TimeÓ in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine. * Deborah Potter has authored ÒDrawing the line at drinking for two: Governmentality, biopolitics, and risk in state legislation on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum DisordersÓ in Critical Perspectives on Addiction, volume 14 (2012) of Advances in Medical Sociology: 129-153. 63rd Annual Meeting Dates and Information to Remember * The Preliminary Program will be available on May 15, 2015. * All program participants must pre-register by July 1, 2013. * Pre-registration rates end on July 15. * See the SSSP site at http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/502/2013_Annual_Meeting/ to find the registration form and for more information about registering for the Annual Meeting. * If you are responsible for registering multiple individuals, you must complete the registration process for each individual. * If you experience any problems while registering, please contact sssp@utk.edu Division Sessions The Health, Health Policy, and Health Services Division is pleased to announce to that there will be 3 sole-sponsored sessions, plus an additional 7 co-sponsored sessions at the Annual Meeting. All of our Division sessions are listed below with their respective organizers. Health Disparities as a Social Problem Organizers: Elizabeth Gage & Lucie Kalousova Health Services and Health Policy Organizer: Larry Greil Problems with Implementing Health Care Reform in a Neo-Liberal Era (Thematic Session) Organizer: Debbie Potter Medical Normalization and the Body (co-sponsored with Disabilities; and Sexual Behavior, Politics & Communities) Organizer: Gary Gabriel Costello Health: Big Pharma, Big Consequences: Drug Diversion and Misuse (co-sponsored with Drinking & Drugs) Organizer: Terry Furst Public Health Sustainability, Ecological Justice, and Globalization (co-sponsored with Environment & Technology; and Global) Organizer: Jennifer Reed Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Studying Health and Inequality In-the round. (co-sponsored with Poverty, Class & Inequality; and Social Problems Theory) Organizer: Shannon Monnat Poverty, Class and the Social Determinants of Health (Co-sponsored with Poverty, Class and Inequality) Organizer: Sharon Roberts Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security: New Perspectives on the Welfare State (Thematic session; co-sponsored with Youth, Aging, and the Life Course) Organizer: Mary Byrnes Fragile Families: Need Programs and Services to Meet the Social, Health, and Educational Needs of Poor Parents and their Children (Co-Sponsored with Poverty Class & Inequality; Family; and Poverty, Class and Inequality) Organizer: Tracy Peressini Call for Nominations for Division Co-Chair 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 2013. 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. The election process is handled by the Executive Office to insure all members of the Division have an opportunity to vote in the election. A majority of votes cast will be necessary to elect any Division Officer. If 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. If you are interested in learning more or in nominating yourself or another individual for this rewarding position - or if you previously expressed interest in being nominated for the upcoming election Ð please contact the Division Chair Debbie Potter (Deborah.potter@louisville.edu) to ensure that your name is on the election slate. Since all names must be submitted to the SSSP office by May 1, the deadline to submit names to the Division Chair is April 29. Call for Newsletter Editor Christina Barmon has been serving as newsletter editor for the past year and a half and her tenure will be up this coming August. So the time has come to elect a new Newsletter Editor. This is a terrific opportunity for a graduate student or other new members to get to know the workings of the Division. The Division puts out a newsletter three times per year (Summer, Spring, and Fall). The Editor is responsible for compiling news submitted from the Co-Chairs and other Division members; formatting the newsletter; and ensuring that the newsletter is distributed. Tenure begins at the annual meeting in summer 2013. Besides the reward of contributing to the ongoing work of the Division, a small stipend is available. If you are interested in learning more or in nominating yourself or another individual for this rewarding and essential position, please contact Christina Barmon (Cebarmon@gmail.com)or Debbie Potter (Deborah.potter@louisville.edu) for further information. Be sure to include ÒSSSP Newsletter EditorÓ in the subject line of your email. Deadline is June 1, 2013.