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Janet Shim, PhD, MPP

Assistant Professor
Dept. of Social & Behavioral Sciences
UCSF Box 0612
3333 California Street, #LHts-455
San Francisco, CA  94143-0612
Telephone:  (415) 514-9392   ·  Fax: (415) 476-6552
Email: janet.shim@ucsf.edu

Research

My research lies at the intersections of three major arenas within sociology:  the sociology of health and illness, of science, technology, and medicine, and of racial, class, and gender inequality.  I am particularly interested in tracing the relationships between conceptions of risk, definitions of difference, the organization of biomedical science and clinical practice, and the social and cultural landscape.

I use social constructionist and symbolic interactionist approaches to investigate social inequalities in health, particularly heart disease; expert and lay knowledge of disease causation; and knowledge production in biomedicine, public health, and population sciences.  In the recent past, I have also examined, in collaboration with Sharon Kaufman and Ann Russ, uses of medical technologies in late life.

Current Projects

I am currently conducting qualitative research on disciplinary theories and practices in epidemiology aimed at addressing multi-level disease causation and health disparities.  I am also launching a pilot study of the role of cultural capital in health care interactions.  And finally, I am working on a book-length project on the uses of racial, socioeconomic, and gender categories in epidemiological research.

Teaching

S207  Sociology of Health and Medicine
S208  Social Psychology and Construction of Health and Illness
S212B  Sociological Theory: Contemporary
S249  Power, Knowledge, and Medicine (Special Studies)

Honors/Awards

• 1995-1996, University of California Graduate Opportunity Fellowship
• 1996-1998, UCSF Graduate Student Mentorship and Research Assistantship Fellowship
• 1999-2001, Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (now the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality) Health Services Dissertation Research Grant
• 2001-2002, National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant
• 2001-2002, UCSF President's Dissertation Year Fellowship
• 2002, UCSF Distinguished Dissertation Award in Sociology
• 2003, American Sociological Association, Section on Medical Sociology, Roberta G. Simmons Outstanding Dissertation Award

Education/Degrees

Princeton University; Princeton, NJ, AB, Public policy

Kennedy School of Govt., Harvard Univ.; Cambridge, MA, MPP, Health Policy

University of California, San Francisco, PhD, Medical Sociology

Selected Publications

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Journal Articles

Clarke, Adele E., Jennifer R. Fishman, Jennifer Ruth Fosket, Laura Mamo, Janet K. Shim. 2000. "Technoscience and the new biomedicalization: Western roots, global rhizomes." Sciences Sociales et Sante 18(2): 11-42 (in French).

Shim, Janet K. 2002. "Understanding the routinised inclusion of race, socioeconomic status, and sex in epidemiology: The utility of concepts from technoscience studies." Sociology of Health and Illness 24(2): 129-50.

Clarke, Adele E., Janet K. Shim, Laura Mamo, Jennifer Ruth Fosket, and Jennifer R. Fishman. 2003. "Biomedicalization: Technoscientific transformations of health, illness, and U.S. biomedicine." American Sociological Review 68(2): 161-94.

Kaufman, Sharon R., Janet K. Shim, and Ann J. Russ. 2004. "Revisiting the biomedicalization of aging: Clinical trends and ethical challenges." The Gerontologist 44(6): 731-8.

Love, Mary Beth, Vicki Legion, Janet K. Shim, Cindy Tsai, Vickie Quijano, and Catherine Davis. 2004. "CHWs get credit: A Ten-year history of the first college-credit certificate for community health workers in the United States." Health Promotion Practice 5(4): 418-28.

Shim, Janet K. 2005. "Constructing 'race' across the science-lay divide:  Racial formation in the epidemiology and experience of cardiovascular disease." Social Studies of Science 35(3): 405-36.

Russ, Ann J., Janet K. Shim, and Sharon R. Kaufman. 2005. "'Is there life on dialysis?': Time and aging in a clinically sustained existence." Medical Anthropology 24(4): 297-324.

Kaufman, Sharon R., Ann J. Russ, and Janet K. Shim. 2006. "Aged bodies and kinship matters: The ethical field of kidney transplant." American Ethnologist 33(1): 81-99.

Shim, Janet K., Ann J. Russ, and Sharon R. Kaufman. 2006. "Risk, life extension, and the pursuit of medical possibility." Sociology of Health and Illness 28(4): 479-502.

Kaufman, Sharon R., Janet K. Shim, and Ann J. Russ. 2006. "Old age, life extension, and the character of medical choice." Journal of Gerontology, Social Sciences 61B(4): S175-S184.

Shim, Janet K., Ann J. Russ, and Sharon R. Kaufman. 2007. "Clinical life: Expectation and the double edge of medical promise." Health: 11(2): 245-264.

Russ, Ann J., Janet K. Shim, and Sharon R. Kaufman. 2007 (in press). "The value of 'life at any cost': Talk about stopping kidney dialysis." Social Science and Medicine.

Book Chapters

Shim, Janet K. 2000. "Bio-power and racial, class, and gender formation in biomedical knowledge production." Pp. 173-95 in Research in the Sociology of Health Care, Vol. 17, edited by Jennie Jacobs Kronenfeld. Stamford, CT: JAI Press.

Kaufman, Sharon R., Ann J. Russ, and Janet K. Shim. 2006. "Aged bodies and kinship matters: The biologization of moral commitment." Pp. 126-135 in Bodies in the Making: Transgressions and Transformations, edited by Nancy N. Chen and Helene Moglen. Santa Cruz, CA: New Pacific Press.

Shim, Janet K. 2008 (forthcoming). "Stratified Epidemiology and the Imperative of Health:  The Biomedicalization of Race, Gender, and Class in Heart Disease." In Biomedicalization: Technoscience, Health and Illness in the U.S., edited by Adele E. Clarke, Laura Mamo, Jennifer R. Fosket, Jennifer R. Fishman, and Janet K. Shim. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Clarke, Adele E., Janet K. Shim, Laura Mamo, Jennifer R. Fosket, and Jennifer R. Fishman. 2008 (forthcoming). "Introduction." In Biomedicalization: Technoscience, Health and Illness in the U.S., edited by Adele E. Clarke, Laura Mamo, Jennifer R. Fosket, Jennifer R. Fishman, and Janet K. Shim. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Clarke, Adele E., Janet K. Shim, Laura Mamo, and Jennifer R. Fosket. 2008 (forthcoming). "Biomedicalization: Technoscience and Transformations of Health and Illness." In Handbook of the Sociology of Health, Illness, and Healing: Blueprint for the 21st Century, edited by Bernice Pescosolido, Jack K. Martin, Jane D. McLeod, and Anne Rogers.  New York: Springer Publishing.

Clarke, Adele E. Janet K. Shim, Sara Shostak, and Alondra Nelson. 2008 (forthcoming). "Biomedicalisation of Health and Identity Through Genetics." In Handbook of Genetics and Society: Mapping the New Genomic Era, edited by Paul Atkinson, Peter Glasner, and Margaret Lock. New York: Routledge.

Books

Clarke, Adele E., Laura Mamo, Jennifer R. Fosket, Jennifer R. Fishman, and Janet K. Shim (eds.). 2008 (forthcoming). Biomedicalization: Technoscience, Health and Illness in the U.S. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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