Leonard I. Pearlin Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Sociological Study of Mental Health
2024: Jason Schnittker, University of Pennsylvania
2023: Elaine Wethington, Cornell University
2022: Jo Phelan, Columbia University
2020: Phyllis Moen, University of Minnesota
2019: Robin W. Simon, Wake Forest University
2018: Scott Schieman, University of Toronto
2017: David Williams, Harvard University
2016: Debra Umberson, University of Texas at Austin
2015: David Takeuchi, Boston College
2014: Jane McLeod, Indiana University
2013: Linda K. George, Duke University
2011: Bernice Pescosolido, Indiana University
2010: Catherine Ross
2009: William Avison, University of Western Ontario
2008: James S. House, University of Michigan
2007: Ronald Kessler, Harvard Medical School
2006: Allan Horwitz, Rutgers University
2005: Peggy Thoits, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
2004: Carol S. Aneshensel, University of California, Los Angeles
2002: Bruce Link, Columbia University
2001: George William Brown, St. Thomas Hospital, London
2000: Blair Wheaton, University of Toronto
1998: R. Jay Turner, University of Miami
1996: Leonard I. Pearlin, University of Maryland, College Park
1994: David Mechanic, Rutgers University
The Section on the Sociology of Mental Health’s Best Book Award
Award established in 2024 and given every other year.
The Section on the Sociology of Mental Health’s Best Publication Award
2024: Rachel Kahn Best, University of Michigan, and Alina Arseniev-Koehler, Purdue University, “The Stigma of Diseases: Unequal Burden, Uneven Decline.” American Sociological Review. Vol. 88 (5): 938-969. 2023.
2024 Honorable Mention: Tania M. Jenkins, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “Physicians as shock absorbers: The system of structural factors driving burnout and dissatisfaction in medicine.” Social Science and Medicine 337: 116311. 2023.
2023: Laura Upenieks, Baylor University, Ioana Sendroiu, University of Hong Kong, Ron Levi, University of Toronto, and John Hagan, Northwestern University, “Beliefs about Legality and Benefits for Mental Health.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 63(2): 266–282. 2022.
2022: Dohoon Lee and Byungkyu Lee. “The Role of Multilayered Peer Groups in Adolescent Depression: A Distributional Approach.” American Journal of Sociology, 125(6): 1513-1558. 2020.
2022: Patricia Louie, Laura Upenieks, Christy L. Erving, and Courtney S. Thomas Tobin. “Do Racial Differences in Coping Explain the Black-White Paradox in Mental Health? A Test of Multiple Mechanisms.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior. 2021.
2021: Lijun Song, Vanderbilt University, “Social Capital, Social Cost, and Relational Culture in Three Societies,” Social Psychology Quarterly, 83(4): 443-462. 2020.
2021: Caitlin Patler, Erin R. Hamilton, and Robin L. Savinar, University of California, Davis, “The Limits of Gaining Rights while Remaining Marginalized: The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program and the Psychological Wellbeing of Latina/o Undocumented Youth,” Social Forces, 2020.
2020: Daniel Schneider, University of California, Berkeley, and Kristen Harknett, University of California, San Francisco, “Consequences of Routine Work-Schedule Instability for Worker Health and Well-Being.” American Sociological Review, 84(1), 82-114. 2019.
2019: Jason Schnittker, The Diagnostic System: Why the Classification of Psychiatric Disorders is Necessary, Difficult, and Never Settled. Columbia University Press. 2017.
2018: Tony N. Brown, Mary Laske Bell, and Evelyn J. Patterson, “Imprisoned by Empathy: Familial Incarceration and Psychological Distress among African American Men in the National Survey of American Life,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 57(2):240-256. 2016.
2018: Mario Luis Small, Someone To Talk To. Oxford University Press. 2017.
2017: Anna S. Mueller and Seth Abrutyn, “Adolescents under Pressure: A New Durkheimian Framework for Understanding Adolescent Suicide in a Cohesive Community,” American Sociological Review 81(5):877-899. 2016.
2016: Andrew Scull, Madness in Civilization: A Cultural History of Insanity, From the Bible to Freud, From the Madhouse to Modern Medicine. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2015.
2016: Owen Whooley, “Nosological Reflections The Failure of DSM-5, the Emergence of RDoC, and the Decontextualization of Mental Distress,” Society and Mental Health 4(2):92-110. 2014.
2015: Anna S. Mueller and Seth Abrutyn, “Suicidal Disclosures among Friends: Using Social Network Data to Understand Suicide Contagion,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 56(1):131-148. 2015.
2014: Mieke Thomeer, Debra Umberson, and Tetyana Pudrovska, University of Texas, Austin, “Marital Processes around Depression: A Gendered and Relational Perspective,” Society and Mental Health 3(3):151-169. 2013.
2013: Jason Schnittker, “The Proximity of Common Unhappiness and Misery,” Society and Mental Health 2(3):135-153. 2012.
2011: Robin Simon, Wake Forest University, and Kathryn Lively, Dartmouth College, “Sex, Anger, and Depression,” Social Forces 88(4):1543-1568. 2010.
2010: John Reynolds and Chardie Baird
2009: Brea L. Perry, Indiana University, “The Ripple Effect: Changes in Social Structural Location and Social Network Dynamics in Mental Illness”
2008: Sigrun Olafsdottir, Boston University, “Beds or Meds: The Changing Societal Response to Mental Health Problems in Advanced, Industrialized Nations, 1960-2003”
2007: Bruce Dohrenwend, J. Blake Turner, Nicholas Turse, Ben Adams, Karestan Koenen, and Randall Marshall, Columbia University, “The Psychological Risks of Vietnam for US Veterens: A Revisit with New Data and Methods,” Science 313(5789):979-982. 2006.
2005: John Hagan, Northwestern University, and Holly Foster, Texas A&M University, “S/He’s a Rebel: Toward a Sequential Stress Theory of Delinquency and Gendered Pathways to Disadvantage in Emergine Adulthood,” Social Forces 82(1):53-86. 2003.
2004: Robin W. Simon, Florida State University, “Revisiting the Relationships among Gender, Marital Status, and Mental Health,” American Journal of Sociology 107(4):1065-1096. 2002.
2003: Tami M. Videon, Montefiore Medical Center
2001: Carol Aneshensel, University of California, Los Angeles, and Jo Phelan, Columbia University, Handbook of the Sociology of Mental Health. Springer. 1999.
1999: Sarah Rosenfield, Rutgers University, “Labeling Mental Illness: The Effects of Received Services and Perceived Stigma on Life Satisfaction,” American Sociological Review 62(4):660-672. 1997.
1997: R. Jay Turner, University of Miami, Blair Wheaton, University of Toronto, and Donald Lloyd, University of Toronto, “The Epidemiology of Social Stress,” American Sociological Review 60(1):104-125. 1995.
1995: Jane McLeod, University of Minnesota, and Michael Shanahan, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, “Poverty, Parenting, and Children’s Mental Health,” American Sociological Review 58(3):351-366. 1993.
The Section on the Sociology of Mental Health’s Dissertation Award
2024: Philip J. Pettis, Michigan State University, “Contextualizing Heterosexism: An Intersectional Approach to Sexual Minority Health Inequalities.” Completed at Vanderbilt University. 2023.
2023: Mia Brantley, The Ohio State University, “’Before the World Gets Them’: The Impact of Racialized Parenting on Black Mothers,” completed at University of South Carolina. 2021.
2022: Alena Kuhlemeier, University of New Mexico
2021: Megan Bolton, Indiana University, “What It Means to Be “Wise”: Personal Experiences, Interpersonal Encounters, and Mental Illness Stigma.”
2020: Atsushi Narisada, University of Toronto
2019: Bianca Manago, Indiana University, “The Role of Mental Health Labels in Stigma and Status Processes”
2018: Courtney Boen, “Death by a Thousand Cuts: Psychosocial Stress Exposure and Black-White Disparities in Psychophysiological Functioning in Late Life”
2017: Jennifer Caputo, “Parental Coresidence Histories and Psychological Well-Being among Contemporary Young Adults”
2016: Alexis Ann Merdjanoff, Rutgers University, “Weathering the storm: the long-term consequences of Hurricane Katrina on mental health, mobility and recovery”
2015: Ning Hsieh, “Social Networks, Social Support, and Mental Health in Cross- National Comparative Perspective”
2014: Eric Grollman, University of Richmond
2013: Shirin Montazer, University of Toronto, “Country of Origin as a Modifier of the effect of Generation and Length of Residence on the Mental Health Outcomes of Immigrants to Canada”
2011: Catherine J. Taylor, PhD Cornell University, currently Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Fellow at Columbia University, “Biological and Subjective Responses to Minority Status and Social Exclusion in the Workplace: A Gendered Perspective”
2010: Kerry Dobransky
2009: David Maimon, The Ohio State University, and Danielle C. Kuhl, Bowling Green University, “Social Control and Youth Suicidality: Situating Durkheim’s Ideas in a Multilevel Framework,” American Sociological Review 73(6):921-943. 2008.
2008: Jane D. McLeod, Indiana University, and Danielle L. Fettes, University of California, “Trajectories of Failure: The Educational Careers of Children with Mental Health Problems,” American Journal of Sociology 113(3):653–701. 2007.
2007: Belinda Needham, University of California, San Francisco and Berkeley, “Adolescent Depression and Young Adult Educational Attainment: An Examination of Gender Differences”
2005: Julie McLaughlin, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, “The Timing of Family Transitions and Depression: Difference by Sex and Education Level”
2004: Parisa Tehranifar, Columbia University, “Perceived Racial Discrimination among Urban African American Adolescents: Exploring Links with Ethnic Identity, School Ethnic Composition and Psychological Symptoms”
2003: Alan V. Horowitz, Rutgers University
2002: Karen T. Van Gundy, University of New Hampshire, “Gender Differences in Stress Manifestations: An Analysis of Interpersonal Dependency and Multiple Stress Outcomes.” Completed at University of Miami. 2001.
2001: Kristi Williams, University of Texas, “Has the Future of Marriage Arrived? A Contemporary Examination of the Effects of Marital Status and Marital Quality on the Psychological Well-Being of Women and Men,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 44(4):470–487. 2003.
1999: Alisa Lincoln, Columbia University, “Psychiatric Emergency Room Decision Making: Social Control and the ‘Undeserving Sick,’” Sociology of Health & Illness 28(1):54-75. 2006.
1998: Terrance J. Wade, University of Western Ontario, “Stress and Distress Among Husbands and Wives”
1994: Pamela Braboy Jackson, Duke University, “The Context of Transition Events Across the Life Course: The Effects of Prior Event Sequencing on Adult Mental Health”
The Section on the Sociology of Mental Health’s Graduate Student Paper Award
2024: Lauren M. Beard and Kyung Won Choi, University of Chicago, “Disrupted family reunification: Mental health, race, and state-level factors.” Social Science and Medicine 348: 116768. 2024.
2024 Honorable Mention: Meghann Lucy, Boston University, “’Fighting Demons’: Stigma and Shifting Norms in Explicit Mention of Overdose in Obituaries, 2010-2019.”
2023: Caroline V. Brooks, Indiana University, “Helpful or Hurtful? Untangling Mechanisms Linking Hispanic Immigrant Networks and Health.”
2023: Colter J. Uscola, University of British Columbia, “Drinker Identity Development: Shame, Pride, and a Thirst to Belong.” Society and Mental Health, 13 (1): 45-60. 2023.
2022: Mobarak Hossain, University of Oxford, Nuffield College. “COVID-19 and gender differences in mental health in low- and middle-income countries: Young working women are more vulnerable.” SSM-Mental Health, 10039. 2021.
2021: Rebecca Ewert, University of Chicago, “Post-Disaster Masculinity and Mental Health.”
2020: Mary Ellen Stitt, University of Texas at Austin, “Adjudication Under Cover: Court-Mandated Treatment and Inequality.”
2020: George Usmanov, Georgia State University, “Types of Types: Social Network Typologies and Meaning of Clients with Serious Mental Illness.”
2019: Patricia Louie, “Revisiting the Cost of Skin Color: Discrimination, Mastery, and Mental Health Among Black Adolescents,” forthcoming in Society and Mental Health
