OOW members attending the 2026 American Sociological Association Annual Meeting may be interested in the following thematic session:

Session 20834: How Can Sociology Disrupt the Status Quo in U.S. Health Policy?

Saturday, August 8, 2:00–3:30 p.m.
Sheraton, Second Floor, Metropolitan Ballroom East

Description: Under the current presidential administration, we have seen significant threats to healthcare access, public health, and health promoting social policies in the U.S. Despite our discipline’s theoretical frameworks and methodological tools, sociologists have often ceded health policy leadership opportunities to adjacent fields. This session asks: How can sociologists more meaningfully impact health policy? What core sociological insights can animate research agendas to disrupt the status quo in health policy? How can we position existing scholarship and produce new knowledge to meet this political moment? This panel will feature scholars working across multiple areas to invite a conversation on how our discipline can catalyze change in health policy.

Presider: Emily Parker, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Moderator: Sorcha Brophy, Columbia University

Panelists:

• Tiffany Joseph, Northeastern University
• Jennifer Karas Montez, Syracuse University
• Josh Pacewicz, Brown University
• Megan Reynolds, University of Utah