Faculty members Robert Rubinstein and Sandra Lane are among the co-editors and contributors to a new social sciences book titled, “The SAGE Handbook of Social Studies in Health and Medicine” (SAGE Publications Ltd, 2022).

The handbook, which includes faculty and graduate student contributions, investigates the social contexts of health—including food and nutrition, race, class, ethnicity, trauma, gender, mental illness and the environment—to explain the complicated nature of illness. It is organized in four parts: “Culture, Society, and Health,” “Lived Experiences,” “Health Care Systems, Access and Use” and “Health in Environmental and Planetary Context.”

Rubinstein, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and professor of international relations, wrote a chapter titled “Disaster and Health,” that examines the estimated 167.6 million people, including refugees, who were affected by disasters in 2020. Lane, professor of public health in Falk College and professor of anthropology at Maxwell by courtesy appointment, contributed two chapters, “Historical Trauma and Epigenetics” and “Gender and Health.” Lane’s first chapter, written with sociology doctoral student Wencheng Zhang, examines the causes and consequences of three famines: the Irish potato famine, the Dutch “hunger winter,” and the China famine. The second chapter, co-written with Dr. Humayra Mayat and anthropology doctoral student Mariel Rivera, investigates the influence of gender on life-cycle roles, reproduction, aging and survival.

In addition, Jok Madut Jok, professor of anthropology, co-wrote the chapter, “Refugees, Life in Host Communities, and the Health Challenges” with anthropology graduate student Julia McDaniel and Dr. Andrea V. Shaw; it looks at the unique challenge for healthcare professionals in considering how refugees’ journeys affect their health. Maxwell School graduate Jay Jeong Hyun Park ’18 B.A. (Soc) is the co-author with Dr. Dessa Bergen-Cico of the chapter “Social and Geopolitical Factors Influencing Trends in Substance Use,” which explores the sociological factors shaping drug use trends.

The volume is available digitally through the Syracuse University libraries.