Stigma leads to poorer health. In The Oxford Handbook of Stigma, Discrimination, and Health, leading scholars identify stigma mechanisms that operate at multiple levels to erode the health of stigmatized individuals and, collectively, produce health disparities. This book provides unique insights concerning the link between stigma and health across various types of stigma and groups.
Brenda Major received her Ph.D. from Purdue University in 1998. She is currently a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her scholarship focuses on the social psychology of stigma and inequality. Her research interests include the psychological and physiological impact of prejudice and discrimination, how cultural ideologies shape entitlement and reactions to social inequality, the social and psychological impact of increasing ethnic diversity, and the psychology of resilience.
John F. (Jack) Dovidio, who received his Ph.D. from the University of Delaware in 1977, is currently the Carl Iver Hovland Professor of Psychology and Public Health, as well as Dean of Academic Affairs of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, at Yale University. His research interests are in stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination; social power and nonverbal communication; and altruism and helping. His scholarship focuses on understanding the dynamics of intergroup relations and ways to reduce intergroup bias and conflict.
Bruce Link is Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University. His interests are centered on topics in psychiatric and social epidemiology as they bear on policy issues. He has written on the connection between socioeconomic status and health, homelessness, violence, stigma, and discrimination. With Jo Phelan, he has advanced the theory of social conditions as fundamental causes of disease. Currently he is conducting research on the life course origins of health inequalities by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status, the consequences of social stigma for the life chances of people who are subject to stigma, and on evaluating intervention efforts aimed at reducing mental illness stigma in children attending middle school.