Dmitri Shalin Interview with S. Leonard Syme about Erving Goffman entitled Erving Looked at the Room and Announced, “I See Everyone Is Observing the Rituals of Mourning”

This interview with S. Leonard Syme, Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, was recorded in Las Vegas on October 12, 2011. Dmitri Shalin transcribed the interview, after which Dr. Syme edited the transcript and approved posting the present version in the Erving Goffman Archives. Breaks in the conversation flow are indicated by ellipses. Supplementary information and additional materials inserted during the editing process appear in square brackets. Undecipherable words and unclear passages are identified in the text as “[?]”

Historical Perspective: The social determinants of disease – some roots of the movement

This is an account of the early days of research on social determinants as I experienced them. I describe my time as one of four Fellows in a new training program in Medical Sociology at Yale University and how I came to be the first Sociologist employed in the U.S. Public Health Service. I then became the first Executive Secretary of a new Study Section at NIH dealing with a small number of research grant proposals in the field of Epidemiology. My account deals with some of my experiences in this developing field, culminating with my appointment as the first Sociologist to become a Professor of Epidemiology in a School of Public Health

The importance of community development for health and well-being

Public health - Economic aspects

Can We Do Anything About Health Disparities in America?

Keynote Address Can We Do Anything About Health Disparities in America? S. Leonard Syme, Ph.D., has been a Professor of Epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley, since 1968. His major research interest has been psychosocial risk factors such as job stress, social support and poverty. In doing this research, he has studied San Francisco bus drivers; Japanese living in Japan, Hawaii and California; British civil servants; and people living in Alameda County, California. Dr. Syme has written two books and over 150 published papers, and has been a visiting professor at universities in England and Japan. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and has received several honors related to his teaching and research, among them, the Lilienfeld Award for Excellence in Teaching, the J.D. Bruce Award for Distinguished Contributions in Preventive Medicine from the American College of Preventive Medicine, and the University of California Distinguished Emeritus Professor Award

Perceptions of Social Mobility: Development of a New Psychosocial Indicator Associated with Adolescent Risk Behaviors

Social class gradients have been explored in adults and children, but not extensively during adolescence. The first objective of this study was to examine the association between adolescent risk behaviors and a new indicator of adolescent relative social position, adolescent “perceived social mobility.” Second, it investigated potential underlying demographic, socioeconomic, and psychosocial determinants of this indicator. Data were taken from the 2004 urban adolescent module of Oportunidades, a cross-sectional study of Mexican adolescents living in poverty. Perceived social mobility was calculated for each subject by taking the difference between their rankings on two 10-rung ladder scales that measured (1) projected future social status and (2) current subjective social status within Mexican society. Adolescents with higher perceived social mobility were significantly less likely to report alcohol consumption, drinking with repercussions, compensated sex, police detainment, physical fighting, consumption of junk food or soda, or watching ≥4 h of television during the last viewing. They were significantly more likely to report exercising during the past week and using a condom during last sexual intercourse. These associations remained significant with the inclusion of covariates, including parental education and household expenditures. Multiple logistic regression analyses show higher perceived social mobility to be associated with staying in school longer and having higher perceived control. The present study provides evidence for the usefulness of perceived social mobility as an indicator for understanding the social gradient in health during adolescence. This research suggests the possibility of implementing policies and interventions that provide adolescents with real reasons to be hopeful about their trajectories

“Culture of drinking” and individual problems with alcohol use

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60339/1/ahern_culture of drinking_2008.pd

Work Time and the 11-Year Progression of Carotid Atherosclerosis in Middle-Aged Finnish Men

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62463/1/work time and 11-year progerssion of carotid atherosclerosis_2009.pd

Pathways to health: a framework for health-focused research and practice

Public health research and practice is faced with three problems: 1) a focus on disease instead of health, 2) consideration of risk factor/disease relationships one at a time, and 3) attention to individuals with limited regard for the communities in which they live. We propose a framework for health-focused research and practice. This framework encompasses individual and community pathways to health while incorporating the dynamics of context and overall population vulnerability and resilience. Individual pathways to health may differ, but commonalities will exist. By understanding these commonalities, communities can work to support health-promoting pathways in addition to removing barriers. The perspective afforded by viewing health as a dynamic process instead of as a collection of risk factors and diseases expands the number of approaches to improving health globally. Using this approach, multidisciplinary research teams working with active community participants have the potential to reshape health and intervention sciences

Historical Perspective: The social determinants of disease - some roots of the movement.

This is an account of the early days of research on social determinants as I experienced them. I describe my time as one of four Fellows in a new training program in Medical Sociology at Yale University and how I came to be the first Sociologist employed in the U.S. Public Health Service. I then became the first Executive Secretary of a new Study Section at NIH dealing with a small number of research grant proposals in the field of Epidemiology. My account deals with some of my experiences in this developing field, culminating with my appointment as the first Sociologist to become a Professor of Epidemiology in a School of Public Health