Seminar Series Archives

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Scholars in Health Policy Research Program

Health and Social Science Research Seminar
Fall 2006

Reading List


First Session: What Do We Get for Our Health Expenditures?

Tuesday, August 29, 10-12 P.M.
Faculty: Robert Anderson, Ph.D.

Required Readings:
  1. Cooper, R.A., Getzen, T.E., McKee, H.J.&Laud, P. "Economic and Demographic Trends Signal an Impending Physician Shortage." Health Affairs 2002. Vol.21, No.1.
  2. Cutler, D., and Richardson, E. "The Value of Health: 1970-1990." AEA Papers and Procedures. What We Get for Health-Care Spending. Vol. 88, No.2. pp.97-100
  3. Cutler, D., McClellan, M.,&Newhouse J.P. "What Has Increased Medical-Care Spending Budget?" AEA Papers and Procedures. The Changing Market for Health Insurance. Vol. 88. No.2. pp.132-135
  4. Evans, R.G., Baver, M.L.,&Marmor T.R. Why Are Some People Healthy and Others Not. New York, Aldine de Grayter, 1194.
  5. Evans, R.G., and Stoddart, G.L. Producing Health, Consuming Health Care.
  6. Goodman, D., Fisher, E.S., Little, G.A., Stukel, T.A., Chang, C.,&Schoendorf, K.S., "The Relation Between the Availability of Neonatal Intensive Care and Neonatal Mortality." The New England Journal of Medicine 2002, Vol. 346, No. 20. pp1538-1544
  7. Grumbach, K. "The Ramifications of Specialty Dominated Medicine." Health Affairs 2002, Vol. 21, No. 1. pp155-157
  8. Grumbach,K. "Specialists, Technology and Newborns - Too Much of a Good Thing" The New England Journal of Medicine. 2002, Vol. 346, No. 20. pp1574-1575
  9. Wennberg, J., Fisher, E.S.,&Skinner, J.S. "Geography and the Debate Over Medicare Reform" Health Affairs 2002

Second Session: US Health Care and Social Protection

Tuesday, September 5, 10-12 P.M.
Faculty: Jonah Levy, Ph.D.

Required Readings:
  1. Skocpol, T., “State Formation and Social Policy in the United States,” in Social Policy in the United States, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 11-36.
  2. Steinmo, S. and Watts, J., “It’s the Institutions, Stupid! Why Comprehensive National Health Insurance Always Fails in America,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, Vol. 20, No. 2, Summer 1995, pp. 329-372.
  3. Esping-Andersen, G. “The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism”, in Chris Pierson and Frances Castles (eds.), The Welfare State Reader, (London: Polity Press, 2000), pp. 154-169.
  4. Howard, C. “Sizing Up the Hidden Welfare State,” in The Hidden Welfare State: Tax Expenditures and Social Policy in the United States, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 17-39.
  5. Hacker, J. “Introduction: American Exceptionalism Revisited,” in The Divided Welfare State: the Battle over Public and Private Social Benefits in the United States, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 5-27.


Third Session: Introduction and Inequalities I: Community Effects on Health

Thursday, September 7, 10-12 P.M.
Faculty: Karen Albright, Ph.D.

Required Readings:

A.        Introduction (1st hour):

  1. Light, D. W. “Ironies of Success: A New History of the American Health Care “System”. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 2004, Volume 45 (extra issue),    pp. 1-24. 
  2. Gray, B.H. and O’Leary, J. “The Evolving Relationship Between Medical Sociology and   Health Policy”Ch. 17 in Handbook of Medical Sociology (Bird, Conrad, Fremont, eds.), 2000, pp. 258-270.
  3. Pescosolido, B.A., McLeod, J., and Alegria, M. “Confronting the Second Social Contract: The Place of Medical Sociology in Research and Policy for the Twenty-First Century” Ch. 29 in Handbook of Medical Sociology (Bird, Conrad, Fremont, eds.), 2000, pp. 411-426.

B.        Inequalities I: Community Effects on Health (2nd hour):

  1. Macintyre, Ellaway, & Cummins. “Place Effects on Health: How can we Conceptualise, Operationalise, and Measure Them?” Social Science & Medicine, 2002, 55, 125-139.
  2. Whitley and McKenzie. “Social Capital and Psychiatry: Review of the literature”. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 2005, pp. 71-84.

Fourth Session: Markets and Market Failure in Health Care

Tuesday, September 12, 10-12 P.M.
Faculty: Robert Anderson, Ph.D.

Required Readings:
  1. Akerlof, G. "The Market for 'Lemons': Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism" Quarterly Journal or Economics. Pp.488-500
  2. Arrow, K. "Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care." The American Economic Review. 1963 Vol. 53, No. 5.
    pp. 941-973
  3. Newhouse, J. "Toward a Theory of Nonprofit Institutions: An Economic Model of a Hospital." The American Economic Review pp. 64-74
  4. Newhouse, J., Beeuwekes Buntin, M.,&Chapman, J.D.., "Risk Adjustment and Medicare." 1999
  5. Pauly, M. and Reddisch, M., "The Not-For-Profit Hospital as a Physician's Cooperative." The American Economic Review. 1973Vol. 63, No. 1. pp87-99

Fifth Session: US Health Care Reform in Comparative Perspective

Thursday, September 14, 10-12 P.M.
Faculty: Jonah Levy, Ph.D.

Required Readings:
  1. Pierson, P., "The New Politics of the Welfare State." World Politics, Vol. 48, January 1996, pp. 143-179.
  2. Moran, M., "Three Faces of the Health Care State," Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, Vol. 20, No.3, Fall 1995, pp.767-781.
  3. Le Grand, J., "Knights, Knaves or Pawns? Human Behavior and Social Policy," Journal of Social Policy, Vol. 26, No. 2, 1997, pp.149-169.
  4. Giaimo, S., "Who Pays for Health Care Reform?" in Paul Pierson (ed.), The New Politics of the Welfare State, (Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 334-368.
  5. Hacker, J., "Privatizing Risk without Privatizing the Welfare State: The Hidden Politics of Social Policy Retrenchment in the United States," American Political Science Review, Vol. 98, No. 2,
    May 2004, pp. 243-260.

Sixth Session: Inequalities II: Race and The Delivery of Health Services; and Mental Health Care and Social Control

Tuesday, September 19, 10-12 P.M.
Faculty: Joshua Guetzkow, Ph.D.

Required Readings:

A. Inequalities II: Race and the Delivery of Health Services (1st hour):

  1. Smedley, B.B., Stith, A.Y., and Nelson, A.R. (eds.), “Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care” Report of the Committee on Understanding and Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.  (Chapters 2-3)

B. Mental Health Care and Social Control (2nd hour):

  1. Conrad, P. “Medicalization and Social Control.”Annual Review of Sociology, 1992, vol 18: 209-232
  2. Mechanic, D. and Rochefort, D.A. “A Policy of Inclusion for the Mentally Ill” Health Affairs, 1992, vol. 11, no. 1: 128-150.


Seventh Session: Biology as Destiny?

Thursday, September 21, 10-12 P.M.
Faculty: Enrico Moretti, Ph.D.

Readings to be distributed later


Eighth Session: Anthropology and the Culture of Medicine

Tuesday, September 26, 10-12 P.M.
Faculty: Sharon Kaufman, Ph.D.

Required Readings:

  1. Gordon, D. R. and E. Paci (1997). "Disclosure Practices and Cultural Narratives: Understanding Concealment and Silence Around Cancer in Tuscany, Italy." Social Science Medicine 44(10): 1433-1452.
  2. Kaufman, S. R. (2005). Introduction. ...And a Time to Die: How American Hospitals Shape the End of Life. New York, A Lisa Drew Book/ Scribner: 1-20.
  3. Kaufman, S. R. (2000). "In the Shadow of 'Death with Dignity': medicine and Cultural Quandaries of the Vegetative State." American Anthropologist 102(1): 69-83.
  4. Kaufman, S. R., J. K. Shim, et al. (2006). "Old Age, Life Extension, and the Character of Medical Choice." Journal of Gerontology: SOCIAL SCIENCE 61B(4): S175-S184.

Ninth Session: Public Opinion and Health Care

Thursday, Septmber 28, 10-12 P.M.
Faculty: Taeku Lee, Ph.D.

Required Readings:

  1. Jacobs, L. and Shapiro, R. “Questioning the Conventional Wisdom on Public Opinion   toward Health Reform.”  PS: Political Science and Politics 1994. 27 (2): 208-214.
  2. Jacobs, L. and Shapiro, R.  “The Politicization of Public Opinion: The Fight for the    
                Pulpit.”  In Margaret Weir, ed., The Social Divide.  Washington, DC: Brookings Institution/Russell Sage Foundation, 1998. pp. 83-125.
  3. Oliver , J.E. and Lee, T.  “Public Opinion and the Politics of Obesity in America.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law 2005. 30 (5): 923-954.
  4. Schlesinger, M. and Lau, R.  “The Meaning and Measure of Policy Metaphors.” American Political Science Review 2000. 94 (3): 611-626.
  5. Brodie, M., et al.  “Research Brief: Health News and the American Public, 1996-2002.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law 2003. 28 (5): 927-950.
  6. “Healthcare System,” Gallup Brain.  Available online at http://institution.gallup.com/content/?ci=4708

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