What is your name?Dr. Patricia Homan. What kind of work do you do in the college?I am an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Florida State University. I am also an Associate at FSU’s Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy and a Research Affiliate of the Center for Demography and Population Health. I teach, do…
Tag: health and aging
Ph.D. Spotlight: Social Relationships as Resources in Later Life: The Dynamics of Structural and Functional Support
The field of sociology has long acknowledged the importance of social relationships. Some of the most well-known research in sociology on relationships stems from the foundational work of Durkheim, who found those who were socially integrated were less likely to commit suicide than those who were socially isolated. Durkheim’s was among the first sociological studies to argue…
Ph.D. Spotlight: Managing Midlife: How Gender and Sexuality Influence Midlife Perceptions of Decline and Progress
This dissertation investigates how gender and sexuality shape people’s perceptions of aging in midlife. The study draws on two prominent narratives about aging discussed by aging studies scholars. The first narrative, decline, is a predominant aging narrative that constructs aging as an accumulation of irreversible losses. A second, less prevalent narrative constructs aging as progress—emphasizing the…
Policy Pub: The COVID-19 Effect: Tackling Racial, Economic, and Gender Inequity
This post is based on a webinar sponsored by Florida State University’s College of Social Sciences and Public Policy. Crises have a way of shining a light on issues that tend to get ignored when things are going well. Crises also create oppertunity to reflect, to adapt, to push for more substantive, transformative change. The…
Ph.D. Spotlight: The Disablement Process of Aging United States Veterans.
Being that military service was a normative part of early adult life for today’s older U.S. population, the number of veterans aged 60 and older in 2015 was estimated to be over 9.3 million. Older United States (U.S.) veterans are a population at risk for disability due to their early life experiences with military service…
Ph.D. Spotlight: Weathering the Storm: An Examination of Fetal Loss, Maternal Age, and Norms of Race and Sexuality.
Dr. Latinsky’s dissertation tests if fetal loss can be applied as an extension of prior literature on the weathering hypothesis. To do so, this study extends upon the weathering hypothesis: the observation that black people experience substantially higher levels of stress than their white counterparts in the United States, that this gap only increases as…
Are Your Grandparents Getting Tipsy at the Holiday Party?
But frequent, heavy alcohol consumption accelerates health decline at all stages of life. While most people know that heavy alcohol use leads to liver diseases like cirrhosis, alcohol is also a major contributor to cancer mortality.
Wicked Problems, Wicked Solutions 