2.4. Sociologists as Clinicians and Public Health Researchers

Another major area of employment for sociologists that bridges the divide between basic and applied sociology is health care. Clinical sociology uses sociological knowledge to improve people’s quality of life. In the United States, this research tradition goes back to the storied work of social reformers in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who sought to address the problems of the urban poor by building settlement houses in impoverished neighborhoods and having middle-class volunteers provide daycare, English classes, and healthcare services. The social worker and sociologist Jane Addams ran the renowned Hull House in Chicago’s Near West Side, and her work among recently arrived European immigrants—captured in her memoir Twenty Years at Hull House (Addams 1910)—inspired a movement to use social scientific insights to alleviate poverty and improve community health. Universities began to establish departments of clinical sociology, while sociological research came to inform the work of healthcare practitioners at clinics, hospitals, and other settings.

The relevance of sociological knowledge to health outcomes has become increasingly clear in recent decades. In particular, sociologists have made important contributions to understanding the social determinants of health, the social and environmental conditions and patterns of social interactions that influence the well-being of individuals (Knapp and Hall 2018). Students with interests in this area typically take medical sociology and public health courses in college and then go on to graduate programs in those fields. Government health agencies and nonprofit organizations that work on public health issues regularly hire researchers to collect and analyze data, design and manage programs, and advise on policy.

An interdisciplinary science that draws heavily from sociology, public health is focused on studying the determinants of health—including social determinants—and using that knowledge to craft policies and interventions that prevent disease and promote health within communities and societies. Here, we can see the direct importance of social scientific knowledge on all facets of people’s lives, with public health research delving into “investigating salmonella outbreaks, tracking Lyme disease, defining drunk driving, fighting climate change, tackling systemic racism, inspecting restaurants, distributing condoms, and every other activity that affects health.” The Covid-19 pandemic, in turn, underscored the importance of thinking about the social determinants of health—particularly the political and social inequalities that lead some groups to fare better than others in the face of any health crisis—and that recognition appears to have sparked greater interest in this line of work (Butcher 2020).

In the field of public health, the focus is very much on applied research, and some researchers further specialize in implementation research. The goal here is to take scientific knowledge and figure out how to make better use of that knowledge—say, a particular medical or pharmaceutical intervention—in real-world settings, paying close attention to the roles that various groups (governments, nonprofit organizations, healthcare providers, citizens, etc.) play in successful implementation (Peters et al. 2013). Large intergovernmental organizations like the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) regularly conduct their own implementation research, but smaller governmental and nongovernmental organizations often do this kind of work as well. Private corporations such as Evidera consult with medical regulatory agencies and conduct implementation research on their behalf.

While public health researchers tend to examine broad health trends and policies, individuals trained in sociological research methods are also well-suited for positions with more direct interactions with patients and clients. According to the American Sociological Association, some of the clinical roles that sociology graduates can pursue include counselor or therapist (working in hospitals, mental health clinics, halfway houses, and private practice), group facilitator (running organizational meetings or group sessions), teacher or trainer (putting on educational workshops on the social and interpersonal aspects of issues like bereavement and addiction), mitigation expert (working for court systems to present mitigating factors that may influence sentencing decisions), and mediator (using conflict resolution training and other skills to resolve disputes within organizations, families, and elsewhere, often on behalf of courts). Managed healthcare and insurance companies like UnitedHealth Group hire sociology graduates as clinical coordinators, among other roles. Hospitals and clinics frequently have dedicated sociologists on staff, and it is worth noting that the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), which aspiring doctors take when applying to medical schools, features a section on medical sociology.

Clinical sociologists often use survey data, archival data, and quantitative methods in their day-to-day work. Those who deal with mental health may draw from their understanding of the social causes and consequences of mental illness to help individuals who have experienced trauma (Johnson 2001). They may utilize their knowledge of social dynamics when they work with support groups in therapeutic settings. Some even choose to specialize in sociotherapy, a sociologically informed approach to therapy that focuses on the social context within which people’s problems emerge (Cavanagh 2021).