William C. Cockerham received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is also Co-Director of the UAB Center for Social Medicine and holds secondary appointments in medicine and public health. He is the recipient of the UAB Connors Prize in the History of Ideas and the Ireland Award for Distinguished Scholarship. Currently, he is serving as the President of the Research Committee on Health Sociology of the International Sociological Association and is on the Editorial Board of the American Sociological Review. Dr.

Cockerham has published numerous peer-reviewed papers in academic journals and is author or editor of fourteen books. His most recent books published by Pearson include Medical Sociology, Thirteenth Edition (2015) and The Sociology of Mental Disorder, Eighth Edition (2010).