With thorough coverage of inequality in health care access and practice, this leading textbook is widely acclaimed by instructors as the most comprehensive of any available. Written in an engaging and accessible style, with multiple student-friendly features, it integrates recent research in medical sociology and public health to introduce students to a wide range of issues affecting health, healing, and health care today.

This new edition links information on COVID-19 into each chapter, providing students with a solid understanding of the social history of medicine; social epidemiology; social stress; health and illness behavior; the profession of medicine; nurses and allied health workers; complementary and alternative medicine; the physician-patient relationship; medical ethics; and the financing and organization of medical care.

Important changes and enhancements in the eleventh edition include: