From Phil_Brown@brown.edu Tue Jan 14 18:47:58 1997 Received: from brown.edu (brown.edu [128.148.128.9]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id SAA29105 for ; Tue, 14 Jan 1997 18:47:56 -0700 (MST) Received: from PPP-93-31.BU.EDU (PPP-93-31.BU.EDU [128.197.9.119]) by brown.edu (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id UAA25141 for ; Tue, 14 Jan 1997 20:47:47 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 20:47:47 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199701150147.UAA25141@brown.edu> X-Sender: Phil_Brown@postoffice.brown.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: medsoc@csf.colorado.edu From: Phil_Brown@brown.edu (Phil Brown) Subject: Obituary and memorial for Sol Levine Below is the obituary for Sol Levine written by Diana Chapman Walsh, which will appear in Social Science & Medicine. An abbreviated version will appear in the upcoming Medical Sociology Newsletter. As well, I include below the memorial I gave on Jan. 13 at the Society and Health research group, founded by Sol Levine and Diana Chapman Walsh. Many of Sol's ideas of the last decades, and some earlier ones too, guided this group. ------------------------ Sol Levine, Ph.D. April 3, 1922 - November 17, 1996 (forthcoming Social Science & Medicine) Sol Levine died on November 17, 1996, suddenly, half way through his 75th year. He died young, late in life, and left so many of us who bear his indelible stamp, that, in a very real sense, he will live on. He used to joke that just because no one had lived forever -- yet -- didn't mean there couldn't be a first time. And he did seem somehow to be defying the passage of time, not only because his intellect and sphere of curiosity were constantly expanding, but also in the way he savored each moment to the full. Sol Levine's intellectual legacy will certainly endure, through his students (who were legion and deeply devoted to him), through his writings (which were astonishingly wide-ranging and deep), and through his inspiring example of how to live a quality life. For more than 40 years he stretched the tools and concepts of medical sociology across a broad expanse of profound questions about health and the quality of life. Sol directed departments and programs at Harvard, Johns Hopkins and Boston universities, the New England Medical Center, and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. He was an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and was the 1986 recipient of the Leo G. Reeder Award for distinguished scholarship from the Medical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association. He held numerous consultantships, visiting professorships, grants and contracts and he lectured widely and well. Sol participated in early studies of social stress; planned social change; community action for health; professional, organizational, economic, and technological barriers to the provision of effective and humane health care; health-related quality of life as a criterion in evaluating medical outcomes; epidemiology and social policy; the social determinants of health. His seminal teachings and writings on these and other issues framed the essential terms of some of the central debates that will surely continue to animate our work for a very long time. Prominent among the many books Sol edited and co-edited were Society and Health (Oxford University Press, 1995); Handbook of Medical Sociology (Prentice-Hall, fourth edition, 1989); Epidemiology and Health Policy (Tavistock, 1987); Life After a Heart Attack (Human Sciences Press, 1982); and Social Stress (Aldine, 1970). He published well over a hundred scholarly papers, taught innumerable courses, supervised many dissertations, and touched many lives. Born in Greenwood, Mississippi, Sol Levine grew up on the lower east side of Manhattan. He graduated from Queens College and earned his master's and doctorate in sociology at New York University in 1948 and 1953 respectively. He directed the social sciences program at the Harvard School of Public Health in the 1960s and, coming full circle, returned there in 1990 as professor of health and social behavior, in a newly-conceived department I had just been recruited to chair, from Boston University where he and I had both spent many years, he from 1972 to 1988 as professor of sociology, social medicine, and public health, and as University Professor. He was my dissertation advisor, my mentor, my colleague, and my cherished friend. Sol was, first and always, a conceptualizer and a teacher. He loved to play with ideas and to push and prod for deeper meanings, saying, often that the field of medical sociology most needs "creative integration," not the fragmented and narrow parochialism that has come with increased specialization. He was reaching for an overarching paradigm for medical sociology (an enterprise he loved), and was finding it in the construct of "society and health." We assembled an interdisciplinary group of scholars and students at Harvard and the New England Medical Center (sociologists, physicians, psychologists, epidemiologists, statisticians, economists, historians) to help us in this pursuit, and Sol's inquisitive and fertile mind was the driving force. He was pushing us to look through several lenses at ways in which social structures and social processes affect health and the quality of life, to ask not only whether society itself produces preventable risks to health (he knew that it does), but more fully how those risks are generated and felt. He wanted us to probe whether a perspective that puts its analytic muscle behind large concepts -- like gender, race, and class -- can produce new answers to old questions, or perhaps even stimulate wholly new questions. It troubled him that so many health studies "control" away these large social factors, rather than making them a central object of study. He argued that we should be not only analyzing health problems "for" gender, or race, or class, but also doing so in the context of an attempt to understand gender, or race, or class as social phenomena interacting with health. This would mean considering the social construct as an independent variable that may affect health, and also as a dependent variable that itself requires explication and analysis. As he approached everything, Sol tackled these complex questions, with his delicious amalgam of zest, humility, whimsy, commitment and abiding grace. His impulses were deeply intellectual but at the same time unabashedly practical. He pressed toward understanding both for the utter joy of it, and for the important corrective it might provide to the widening gap between rich and poor in America, a gap that he knew was eroding our humanity. > In his pioneering career, Sol Levine was a force for goodness always, a force for kindness, for understanding, for connection. Although one of his earliest writings was on "exchange theory," Sol himself was an unregenerate giver, always finding time to help anyone who needed anything he could provide. His generosity of spirit was legendary, and, of course, what he knew was how much these exchanges enriched his own life. Sol had many ideas and insights about life satisfactions. He often said he was going to write a book on happiness. He meant to get to it. Instead, he lived it. Diana Chapman Walsh President of Wellesley College December 31, 1996 ----------------------- SOL LEVINE -- AN APPRECIATION Phil Brown January 13, 1996 at the Society and Health Program's Memorial Boston, MA Sol was one of the handful of medical sociologists who anyone in the field -- and there are about 1000 of us -- would agree was a central figure, a major educator, and a great citizen. My privilege today is to talk about his contributions to medical sociology. To do so, I must first talk about my relationship with him. I first developed an intellectual relationship with Sol in 1985, during a two year period when I was doing research at Mass. Mental Health Center. He was one of those people whom I always knew about, and when we finally sat down and talked, it was as if we had been doing so for a long while. Sol expressed much interest in my research on clinical interaction and on professional diagnostic behavior in psychiatry. I was very pleased to find such an esteemed senior scholar so interested in me and my work. I found out quickly that Sol was a marvelous person in that regard, one who boosted the professional development of so many medical sociologists. When Sol left for California to work at Kaiser, I was sad. We had begun a series of discussions about various topics in medical sociology in which I felt a special connection to him. I looked forward to seeing Sol at conferences, and the connection was fresh and alive. When he returned to Boston, Sol and I talked much more about my work, which had shifted to environmental health. Sol increasingly took me under his wing, helping me find grant support and offering intellectual guidance. Along with Al Tarlov, Sol helped me get a Kaiser Foundation grant for my sabbatical three years ago, which enabled me to make a sustained push in my research. I realized that I was getting a mentor, late in life, something which is fairly uncommon. I had a dear friend and mentor since graduate school in Irv Zola. Losing Irv a few years ago deprived me of a person who filled the important role of a guide and confidant, someone to help talk over career decisions, someone to float new ideas with. After Irv died, Sol took over that role, and I think it was a rare gift to have that kind of relationship, especially when you develop it in mid-career. Sol gravitated to my research, and he could use so much of his previous experience to suggest issues to incorporate -- he showed me interesting work on community health assessment, he tapped his previous social psychological insights to help me out, and, in accordance with his recent emphasis on social structure, Sol encouraged my study of class and race in relation to environmental hazards. I came to realize that this was not just something Sol did for me. Rather, this was his gift of making many people feel special about their work. Sol could find what people were trying to say, and then help them to develop it better. He could see the gem, and help people cut it to make it sparkle and please. The most fundamental shift in my thinking about medical sociology these last five years has been from the guidance of Sol, and through him, from this Society and Health group. I was ripe for the emphasis on social inequality, since it was akin to my interests in health and the environment, and since I had always viewed race, class, and gender as central to health status and access to service. But Sol had a fresh take on this, and he exposed me to a far wider range of research that I knew about. I quickly absorbed so much of what Sol was putting forward in this group and redesigned my graduate seminar in medical sociology so that it largely resembled the readings we have been discussing here for years. Sol led us all along a thoughtful intellectual path, putting in sharp relief the social inequality concerns that too often lay dormant. Sure, we all believed that social inequality was important to health and health care, but in truth we never accorded it such primary importance -- Sol helped us all to put it more in the center. And without hitting us over the head with it, Sol developed it gradually. He knew when to talk himself, when to bring in others to talk, when to suggest readings, when to write, when to confer. Sol's co-edited book, Society and Health, embodies much of this project, and will be a long-lived testament to the value of this way of looking at health in its social context. Sol had a vision of developing a corps of scholars to pursue issues of inequality across a variety of topics. As you know, from being here, he succeeded in that. Without diminishing the contributions of physicians, epidemiologists, and others in this Society and Health group, I want to emphasize that Sol demonstrated to me and others how important medical sociology could be in leading other health scholars to a rich and overarching theoretical perspective. This "society and health" approach, as we have come to call it, was Sol's most recent contribution. So I have to step back a bit, to show his career in some perspective I finally figured out why Sol edited the Handbook of Medical Sociology, a compendium of the major areas of research in the field -- it was because he had studied, consulted, and written about so many of them. It is truly amazing to see the extent of his life's work. Sol's huge number of interests were not random -- he was always concerned with making the world a better and more just place, and in increasing health all around. Indeed, his interest in happiness, about which he wanted to write a book, stemmed from his desire to participate in creating a healthy and happy world. Sol was one of the first sociologists to conduct research on stress and health, an area we now consider core. Indeed, in the early 1960s Sol designed the survey instrument for the Framingham Heart Study to determine the effects of stress on heart disease. As an outgrowth of the Framingham research, Sol edited Social Stress with Norman Scotch, bringing together sociological and psychological work in the area. Sol was well-known for his work in heart disease. He explored how heart attack victims experienced their illness, and how they recovered, in his books with Sydney Croog, The Heart Patient Recovers and Life After a Heart Attack. Sol's Ph.D. minor was psychology, and social psychology played a large role in Sol's work. That is evident in his work on stress and psychosocial risk factors. Quality of life became a central concern for Sol. He looked at the impact of hypertension medication and of technology diffusion on quality of life, and worked to develop new and better measurements for this significant concept. Sol's social psychological sensibilities also came through in articles on a wide variety of other topics: psychotherapy as socialization, religious identity in the response to illness, self-concept changes stemming from heart disease, the dying process, and the effect of psychoanalysis on sociology and anthropology. Sol was motivated in large part by a broad vision of community. When Sol looked at social structural factors, he was not merely adding in societal level variables. Rather, he was working on piecing together a community-oriented vision of health. He was intrigued by the important effects of community structures and social networks on people's health status and on how people sought help for their problems. He understood the need for innovative locally-based health services, such as Neighborhood Health Centers. In terms of the larger community of our whole society, Sol wrote about the need for national health insurance, and more broadly, he sought to alleviate the inequalities that he believed were at the center of poor health. Through community-wide preventive interventions, Sol hoped to diminish people's need for health care. But Sol was not one who held people responsible for their illnesses. His 1987 volume with Abraham Lilienfeld, Epidemiology and Social Policy, was one I particularly liked. It sought to harness the talents of epidemiology to promote a healthier society. I find in this volume a clear thread to Sol's subsequent work in the society and health approach. In between his micro and macro-level approaches to health and illness, Sol also put effort into the meso-level of providers and institutions. He studied interprofessional relations in delivering primary care, he examined medical education, and wrote about the changing nature of the medical profession. Sol studied organizational structure and innovation in health organizations and the effects this could have on service delivery. Sol was appreciated by all milieus concerned with health. Major foundations such as Kaiser and Robert Wood Johnson sought him to play a leading role in their research programs. The Institute of Medicine elected him as a member. Federal agencies and medical research organizations asked for his guidance. Public health schools desired his administrative leadership and program innovation. Sol was one of the best ambassadors of medical sociology we ever had to the worlds of medicine, public health, foundations, and government that surround the discipline. When the larger discipline of sociology wanted the expert opinion on medical sociology they typically came to Sol, for a review essay in Contemporary Sociology or an entry in the Encyclopedia of Sociology. Sol's co-production of the Handbook of Medical Sociology presented the field with a wide-ranging collection of articles that represented the best single source for identifying our chief concerns. Edition after edition has proven invaluable to generations of students and faculty. Sol noted, half-joking, that his co-editors of the Handbook, Leo Reeder and Howard Freeman, were dying in between editions, and he worried about his own future. For medical sociology, Sol was a beacon - who else would be chosen to write the opening essay for the special issue of Journal of Health and Social Behavior that celebrated 40 years of medical sociology? Sol was clearly one of the founders, being one of the organizers of the medical sociology section. He nurtured, mentored, organized and promoted the speciality of medical sociology. This was not only within medical sociology. Sol really believed sociology had a lot to offer public health and medicine, and he was an eloquent champion of that message. He conducted research with medical collaborators, bringing to that work a psychosocial and community perspective. Sol was also an institution builder of academic centers that would embody sociology's connection with public health and medicine: he helped start the behavioral sciences department at Johns Hopkins, and he co-founded the BU School of Public Health, and he started the society and health program that has so influenced all of us here. Through his work as Program Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Investigator Awards in Health Policy, starting in 1994, he further cemented the role of social science in health. As well, Sol wrote articles and spoke widely about the relationship between social science and medicine, enabling other to make the connections that he pioneered. Though Sol had a critical stance to the problems of health status and of medical care, he was not an outside critic. Sol knew with what people and institutions to work with to achieve goals of human betterment. He was enormously effective at working within the health sector, while never giving up his critical sociological eye. In doing so, he also showed medical sociologists how they might successfully work within the medical and public health worlds. It was a joy to see Sol's vitality. He retained his enthusiasm for new ideas throughout his life, an enthusiasm that did not wane after 40 years in the field, and that continued until the day he died. This vitality gave him energy, and it fostered such energy in the many people he came into contact with. It was no surprise that Sol was chosen in 1986 for the great honor of the Medical Sociology Section's Leo G. Reeder Award for Distinguished Contributions to Medical Sociology. As a further honor, the Section voted this past August to award Sol a Certificate of Appreciation for a Career of Distinguished Service to the Medical Sociology Section. While the Reeder Award honors scholarship and mentoring, the Certificate acknowledge the great efforts of Sol in shaping and building the Section. It will be sad for me when I present this award posthumously this coming August, but I guarantee you that Sol's contributions will live a very long time. Phil Brown, Ph.D. Professor of Sociology Brown University Box 1916 Providence RI 02912 (401) 863-2633 (secretary 863-2367) fax (401) 863-3213 From Phil_Brown@brown.edu Mon Jan 20 06:29:24 1997 Received: from brown.edu (brown.edu [128.148.128.9]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id GAA29552 for ; Mon, 20 Jan 1997 06:29:23 -0700 (MST) Received: from PPP-83-5.BU.EDU (PPP-83-5.BU.EDU [128.197.8.89]) by brown.edu (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id IAA29512 for ; Mon, 20 Jan 1997 08:29:20 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 08:29:20 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199701201329.IAA29512@brown.edu> X-Sender: Phil_Brown@postoffice.brown.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: medsoc@csf.colorado.edu From: Phil_Brown@brown.edu (Phil Brown) Subject: HMO's, I thought that you'd never ask. Humor time here on the quiet listserv. Here's something I picked up in cyberland: >> >>From: Michael Davis >>Subject: Health Care FAQ > >>Frequently Asked Questions About Health Care >>By David Lubar >> >>Q. What does HMO stand for? >>A. This is actually a variation of the phrase, "Hey, Moe!" Its roots go >> back to a concept pioneered by Doctor Moe Howard, who discovered that a >> patient could be made to forget about the pain in his foot if he was >> poked hard enough in the eyes. Modern practice replaces the physical >> finger poke with hi-tech equivalents such as voice mail and referral >> slips, but the result remains the same. >> >>Q. Do all diagnostic procedures require pre-certification? >>A. No. Only those you need. >> >>Q. I just joined a new HMO. How difficult will it be to choose the >> doctor I want? >>A. Just slightly more difficult than choosing your parents. Your >> insurer will provide you with a book listing all the doctors who were >> participating in the plan at the time the information was gathered. >> These doctors basically fall into two categories -- those who are no >> longer accepting new patients, and those who will see you but are no >> longer part of the plan. But don't worry -- the remaining doctor who is >> still in the plan and accepting new patients has an office just a half >> day's drive away! >> >>Q. What are pre-existing conditions? >>A. This is a phrase used by the grammatically challenged when they >> want to talk about existing conditions. Unfortunately, we appear to >> be pre-stuck with it. >> >>Q. Well, can I get coverage for my pre-existing conditions? >>A. Certainly, as long as they don't require any treatment. >> >>Q. What happens if I want to try alternative forms of medicine? >>A. You'll need to find alternative forms of payment. >> >>Q. My pharmacy plan only covers generic drugs, but I need the name >> brand. I tried the generic medication, but it gave me a stomach ache. >> What should I do? >>A. Poke yourself in the eye. >> >>Q. I have an 80/20 plan with a $200 deductible and a $2,000 yearly >> cap. My insurer reimbursed the doctor for my out-patient surgery, >> but I'd already paid my bill. What should I do? >>A. You have two choices. Your doctor can sign the reimbursement >> check over to you, or you can ask him to invest the money for you in >> one of those great offers that only doctors and dentists hear about, >> like windmill farms or frog hatcheries. >> >>Q. What should I do if I get sick while traveling? >>A. Try sitting in a different part of the bus. >> >>Q. No, I mean what if I'm away from home and I get sick? >>A. You really shouldn't do that. You'll have a hard time seeing >> your primary care physician. It's best to wait until you return, and >> then get sick. >> >>Q. I think I need to see a specialist, but my doctor insists he can >> handle my problem. Can a general practitioner really perform a >> heart transplant right in his office? >>A. Hard to say, but considering that all you're risking is the $10 >> co-payment, there's no harm giving him a shot at it. >> >>Q. What accounts for the largest portion of health care costs? >>A. Doctors trying to recoup their investment losses. >> >>Q. Will health care be any different in the next century? >>A. No, but if you call right now, you might get an appointment by then >> Phil Brown, Ph.D. Professor of Sociology Brown University Box 1916 Providence RI 02912 (401) 863-2633 (secretary 863-2367) fax (401) 863-3213 From Phil_Brown@brown.edu Thu Jan 23 15:18:38 1997 Received: from brown.edu (brown.edu [128.148.128.9]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id PAA21070 for ; Thu, 23 Jan 1997 15:18:36 -0700 (MST) Received: from PPP-92-23.BU.EDU (PPP-92-23.BU.EDU [128.197.9.75]) by brown.edu (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP id RAA02320 for ; Thu, 23 Jan 1997 17:18:31 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 17:18:31 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199701232218.RAA02320@brown.edu> X-Sender: Phil_Brown@postoffice.brown.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: medsoc@csf.colorado.edu From: Phil_Brown@brown.edu (Phil Brown) Subject: email address correction Apparently the Medical Sociology Newsletter published Brad Gray's email address wrong in the original Call for Paper. It is bgray@nyam.org, NOT hgray@nyam.org Phil Phil Brown, Ph.D. Professor of Sociology Brown University Box 1916 Providence RI 02912 (401) 863-2633 (secretary 863-2367) fax (401) 863-3213 From StahlS@gw.nia.nih.gov Sat Jan 25 13:46:46 1997 Received: from imc1.nih.gov (imc1.nih.gov [128.231.90.80]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id NAA00997 for ; Sat, 25 Jan 1997 13:46:44 -0700 (MST) Received: by imc1.nih.gov with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Server Internet Mail Connector Version 4.0.995.9) id <01BC0AD6.F4F33570@imc1.nih.gov>; Sat, 25 Jan 1997 15:46:40 -0500 Message-ID: From: "Stahl, Sidney" To: "'Medical Sociology Colleagues'" Cc: "Ory, Marcia" , "Stahl, Sidney" Subject: NIA Request for Proposals on Minority Aging Research Date: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 15:43:00 -0500 Encoding: 60 TEXT Attached is an announcement of an RFA on Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research that has just been issued by the Behavioral and Social Research Program of the National Institute on Aging. I urge you to take a look at the full proposal. If you have questions, give me a call or write. Sid Stahl ================================================== NIA Announces new RFA: Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research The Behavioral and Social Research Program of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) is pleased to announce the release of a new RFA, Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research (AG-97-002), jointly sponsored with the National Institute for Nursing Research. The Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research (RCMARs) are designed to create a research infrastructure around three objectives: (1) to establish a mechanism for mentoring researchers for careers in research on the health of minority elders; (2) to enhance diversity in the professional workforce conducting research on the health of minority elders; and (3) to develop and deploy strategies for recruiting and retaining minority group members in epidemiological, psychosocial, and/or biomedical research dealing with the health of the elderly. Applicants must demonstrate access to and experience working with the selected minority population(s). At the time of the application, institutions participating as part of a proposed center must have among them at least three or more externally funded, current, peer-reviewed projects involving human subjects in the RCMAR-related areas of reducing health differentials, health care access, and/or minority research, as related to aging research. The award of Center grants pursuant to this RFA is contingent upon the availability of funds for this purpose. The total cost may not exceed $575,000 per application for the first year. The full text of the RCMAR RFA is published in the January 10, 1996 NIH Guide (Vol 26, No. 1) and can be obtained from the NIH Home Page at: http://www.nih.gov/grants/ >>>go to "NIH Guide...." >>>go to "Requests for Applications...." >>>go to "AG-97-002" Receipt date is April 18, 1997. Address inquiries to: Sidney M. Stahl, PhD Behavioral and Social Research Program National Institute on Aging/NIH Gateway Building, Suite 533 7201 Wisconsin Avenue Bethesda, MD 20892-9205 Telephone: 301/402-4156 Fax: 301/402-0051 E-mail: Sidney_Stahl@nih.gov ==================================================