Lijun Song, PhD

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University with secondary appointment in the Asian Studies Program.

What are the social causes and consequences of social networks across society and time? My scholarly work connects and contributes to three specialty areas: social networks, medical sociology, and social stratification. I investigate three major research themes: how social networks produce inequalities in health and well-being, how social networks generate social stratification, and how social forces stratify social networks. The network-based concepts I analyze include accessed SES (network members’ socioeconomic status), social capital, social support, social integration, reference group, and social comparison. The social stratifiers I study include gender, race/ethnicity, SES, and class. The major well-being outcomes I examine include health, health information search, life satisfaction, lifestyle, and body weight.