Peter Conrad
Harry Coplan Professor of Social Sciences
email: conrad@brandeis.edu
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Focus of Research Medical Sociology, Deviance, Qualitative Research Methods. Education Ph.D., Boston University Joined the Brandeis department in 1979. 2005 A.S.A. Reeder Award Lecture - "Shifting Engines of Medicalization" |
Professor Conrad has engaged in research and writing that has focused on identifying hyperactive children, the medicalization of deviance, the experience of epilepsy, worksite wellness programs, medical education, and the social meanings of the new genetics. His current research is on the structure and meanings of biomedical enhancement, focusing on the Human Growth Hormone, breast augmentation and the potentials of genetic enhancement.
Professor Conrad has served as chair of the Medical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association (1989-90) and President of the Society for the Study of Social Problems (1995-96). He received the Charles Horton Cooley Award (1981) from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction for Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to Sickness. In 1997 he was a Distinguished Fulbright Fellow at Queen's University of Belfast (Northern Ireland). In 2004, Professor Conrad received the Leo G. Reeder Award from the Medical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association. The award is given annually for "distinguished contributions to medical sociology."
Peter Conrad has published 9 books or monographs and over 100 articles and chapters.
Click to see the program of his latest colloquium: "Medicalization and the Growth of Health Care"Recent Publications
Selected Books
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The Medicalization of Society, The John Hopkins University Press, 2007. JAMA Review |
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Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to Sickness (with Joseph W. Schneider), Mosby 1980; expanded edition, Temple University Press, 1992. |
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Sociology of Health and Illness: Critical Perspectives, seven editions, (first four editions edited with Rochelle Kern), Worth Publishers (formally with St. Martin's Press), 1981-2005. |
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Handbook of Medical Sociology, fifth edition (co-edited with Chloe Bird and Allen Fremont). Prentice Hall, 2000. |
The Double Edged-Helix: Genetics in A Diverse Society (co-edited with four others), Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
Selected Articles
"The Discovery of Hyperkinesis: Notes on the Medicalization of Deviant Behavior," Social Problems, 1975.
"In the Closet with Illness: Epilepsy, Stigma Potential and Information Control" (with Joseph W. Schneider), Social Problems, 1980.
"The Meanings of Medication: Another Look at Compliance," Social Science and Medicine, 1985.
"The Experience of Illness: Recent and New Directions," Research in the Sociology of Health Care, 1987.
"Wellness in the Workplace: Potentials and Pitfalls of Worksite Health Promotion," Milbank Quarterly, 1987.
"Learning to Doctor: Reflections on Recent Accounts of the Medical School Years," Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 1988.
"Medicalization and Social Control," Annual Review of Sociology, 1992.
"The New Corporate Health Ethic: Lifestyle and the Social Control of Work" (with Diana Chapman Walsh), International Journal of Health Services, 1992.
"Wellness as Virtue: Morality and the Pursuit of Health, Culture Medicine and Psychiatry, 1994.
"Helmets, Injuries and Cultural Definitions: Motorcycle Injury in Urban Indonesia (with four others), Accident Analysis and Prevention, 1996.
"Public Eyes and Private Genes: Historic Frames, News Constructions and Social Problems," Social Problems, 1997.
"Parallel Play in Medical Anthropology and Medical Sociology," The American Sociologist, 1997.
"A Mirage of Genes" Sociology of Health and Illness, 1999.
"From Hyperactive Children to ADHD Adults: Observations of the Expansion of Medical Categories" (with Deborah Potter), Social Problems, 2000.
"Constructing the 'Gay Gene' in the News: Optimism and Skepticism in the US and British Press" (with Susan Markens), Health, 2001.
"Human Growth Hormone and the Temptations of Biomedical Enhancement" (with Deborah Potter), Sociology of Health and Illness, 2004.
"The Shifting Engines of Medicalization" (The Leo G. Reader Award lecture), Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 2005.
"Trends in the use of Psychotropic Medications in Adolescents, 1994-2001" (with Elizabeth Goodman, Cindy Thomas and Rosemary Casler), Psychiatric Services, 2006.