Elaine Hernandez
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emhernandez.bsky.social
Elaine Hernandez
@emhernandez.bsky.social
5.4K followers 1.1K following 270 posts
Inequities in health are ubiquitous. I study the processes that create and perpetuate them.

Medical sociology (PhD), health policy (MPH), & health demography.

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emhernandez.bsky.social
Oh hey, little update. Indiana University Department of Sociology is hiring this fall. Keeping you on your toes deadline is 11/16. We’re looking for an assistant professor specializing in sociology of medicine, health, and/or well-being broadly defined. indiana.peopleadmin.com/postings/30984
IU Bloomington Sociology Location Bloomington Position Summary The Department of Sociology (https://sociology.indiana.edu/index.html) at Indiana University, Bloomington, invites applications for a tenure-track position at the level of Assistant Professor to begin in the fall of 2026 in the general area of sociology of medicine, health, and/or well-being broadly defined. We encourage applicants whose research in medicine, health, and/or well-being would complement department strengths in the areas of education, social psychology, political sociology, sociology of the family, sociology of inequality, stratification, and population. The tenure home for this position will be in the Department of Sociology. Ph.D. in Sociology is required at time of appointment. Applicants should apply online at https://indiana.peopleadmin.com/postings/30984 including a cover letter; CV; statements on research and/or teaching; up to three writing samples; and contact information for three letters of reference. Applications must be complete by November 16, 2025, to receive full consideration. Applications will be considered until the position is filled. Queries can be sent to Fabio Rojas (frojas@iu.edu), Department of Sociology Chair, or Jennifer Barber (jenbarb@iu.edu), Chair of the Search Committee. Indiana University is an equal opportunity employer and provider of ADA services and prohibits discrimination in hiring. See Indiana University Notice of Non-Discrimination here which includes contact information.
October 26, 2025 at 3:51 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
Beautiful city, lovely people! Thank you Chicago for hosting the #ASA2025 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (@asanews.bsky.social)!
View of the Chicago River meeting Lake Michigan. There are skyscrapers to the left side and boats in the river. In the distance is Navy Pier with the Ferris wheel. It is a bright and sunny day with blue skies and white puffy clouds.
August 11, 2025 at 1:41 AM
emhernandez.bsky.social
We need to connect to continue our health research & build the next generation of scholars. Submit to the 10th Annual IAPHS meeting in Pittsburgh (Sept 2025). It is easy (abstracts only) and, there will be *joy* as we celebrate our anniversary! @iaphs.bsky.social

iaphs.org/why-you-shou...
Thumbnail picture for the start of the video, it is a picture of me standing in my office. I'm wearing a white sweater and glasses. The title is "Why you should attend the IAPHS Conference in 2025."
March 7, 2025 at 3:40 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
Cutting jobs & our social safety net to fund SpaceX & Tesla: “Musk and his businesses have received at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits, often at critical moments…helping seed the growth that has made him the world’s richest person.”

wapo.st/41uIOJ4
This is a figure depicting, how much funding musk companies have received from the government?‘s contracts, loans, subsidies in tax credits by company, including SpaceX and Tesla. It ranges from 2003-2025.
February 26, 2025 at 12:07 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
One issue that continues to benefit from support across the political aisle is the desire to reduce mortality rates during/after pregnancy. Extending Medicaid coverage to 1 year postpartum is crucial in this objective. Cuts to Medicaid would take us backward.
An infographic explaining that 2/3 of US pregnancy related deaths occur during the postpartum.
February 24, 2025 at 8:25 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
Medicaid provides crucial funding for our seniors using long term services. These costs are too high for most people (ave $116k/yr in 2023).
This is a figure showing that Medicaid paid for over half of the $438 billion. Did the US spent on long term services and supports in 2022, most of which went to Homan community base services. The figure depicts the specifics divided into institutional settings versus home and community base settings.
January 28, 2025 at 9:53 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
An excellent source of information on Medicaid is the @kff.org. 4 in 10 kids use Medicaid, & 1 in 6 adults. Medicaid 101 in this link here:

www.kff.org/health-polic...
This is a figure of the percentage of the population covered by Medicaid, which ranged from 11% to 34% across the states in 2022. Is a picture of all of the states and each state is colored according to their percentage. The colors ranged from green to blue.
January 28, 2025 at 9:43 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
Save the link and then log out. Get some rest. Exercise. Reduce the effects of stress on your body. And find joy. My joy is that my new ficus tree is sprouting new leaves.
Leaves of a ficus tree up close. There are small shoots of light green growth.
January 23, 2025 at 1:10 AM
emhernandez.bsky.social
Help me welcome the Indiana University Department of Sociology as well as our Schuessler Institute for Social Research & the Irsay Institute!

@iusociology.bsky.social
@schuessler-iu.bsky.social
@irsay-iu.bsky.social
This is a picture of the Sample Gates on the Indiana University campus. The pictures taken at sunset and the camera is facing the sun. The angle is from the ground, facing a red brick path. There is a limestone building to the right and trees surrounding the sample gates.
January 10, 2025 at 7:57 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
Stumbled upon what I *think* is a Cooper’s Hawk that just caught a relatively large rabbit. If I anthropomorphized animals I’d say it looks quite pleased!
I believe this is a Cooper’s Hawk. It’s caught a large rabbit and is suffocating it while standing on a sidewalk next to some evergreen bushes.
December 28, 2024 at 8:03 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
Great new article in the American Sociological Review: “Does [continued] racial school segregation today limit Black and Hispanic students’ educational opportunities? Our cross-sectional and panel analyses indicate that the answer, in short, is yes.”
American Sociological Review Is Separate Still Unequal? New Evidence on School Segregation and Racial Academic Achievement Gaps Sean F. Reardon sean.reardon@stanford.edu, Ericka S. Weathers, Erin M. Fahle, Heewon Jang, and Demetra Kalogrides Abstract U.S. public schools are racially and economically segregated. Prior research shows that the desegregation of Southern schools beginning in the 1960s led to significant benefits for Black students. Less clear, however, is whether segregation today has the same harmful effects as it did 50 years ago and through what mechanisms segregation continues to affect achievement. We estimate the effects of current-day school segregation on racial achievement gaps using 11 years of data from all U.S. public school districts. We find that racial segregation is strongly associated with the magnitude of achievement gaps in 3rd grade and the rate at which gaps grow from 3rd to 8th grade. The association of racial segregation with achievement-gap growth is completely accounted for by racial differences in school poverty. Thus, racial segregation is harmful because it concentrates minority students in high-poverty schools, which are, on average, less effective than lower-poverty schools. Exploratory analyses show that segregation-related between-school differences in teacher characteristics are associated with unequal learning rates and account for roughly 20 percent of the effect of Black–White racial differences in exposure to poverty. Further research is needed to identify mechanisms linking school segregation to achievement-gap growth.
December 19, 2024 at 2:28 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
What I will share is that I’m seeing interesting movement within friend groups & online to call out pseudo-science. Previously tolerated anti-vaccine views being challenged.
The placebo issue One of Mr. Siri’s arguments against vaccines is that some, including the polio and hepatitis B vaccines, have not been tested against placebos in randomized, double-blind clinical trials — the gold standard for medical research, in which some patients get inert vaccines and doctors don’t know which patients get which. He has called in his petitions for the shots to be pulled from the market until placebo-controlled trials — which would deny some children polio shots — can be completed. Given the known risks of polio causing paralysis that can seize major organs and kill people, such work is considered unethical. “You’re substituting a theoretical risk for a real risk,” said Dr. Paul A. Offit, a vaccine expert at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. ”The real risks are the diseases.”
December 13, 2024 at 12:43 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
Wading into contested territory in sociology circles, what is medical sociology? @stefantimmermans.bsky.social & Tavory adeptly delineate between sociology IN medicine and sociology OF medicine…
This is an excerpt from the book, I elaborate with quotes in the next posts
December 11, 2024 at 6:16 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
As a co-chair of the @iaphs.bsky.social meeting planning committee I can attest that this is going to be an excellent 10-year anniversary conference. Plan your abstracts and panels and join us! Never been? Feel free to ask about it below…

iaphs.org/conference/
An image of Pittsburgh in the background overlayed with the words (in white): 2025 IAPHS CONFERENCE “Community Engagement in Population Health Science.” September 8-11, 2025, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
December 10, 2024 at 5:53 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
It’s been a minute since I’ve set foot in Notre Dame Stadium, but my phone lit up when this was announced and I’d go in a heartbeat!
A poster announcing that in the first round of the college football playoffs Indiana University will play Notre Dame in South Bend, IN. The game will be 12/20 at 8pm EST and it’ll be on ESPN and ABC. The image is of ND Stadium at night (a graphic) with a giant trophy-like football in the middle. The image is in blue and gold for ND colors.
December 8, 2024 at 7:55 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
This is the short prompt I used for student discussion today and their responses are remarkable. Same stories, flipped perspective, and powerful. How does *having* health care access change lives?
All too often we frame social problems negatively. We focus our attention on what happens when people lack access to health care because they do not have health insurance (or are underinsured), for example. In your discussion post this week, I want you to flip this issue. Instead of focusing on what happens when people LACK access to health care (due to being un- or underinsured) what happens when people HAVE access to health care? How does having health care access change their lives?
December 4, 2024 at 10:13 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
When the algorithm is spot on
An ad for a notebook. The notebook is blue, spiraled and says “Times I was right and nobody listened” in white letters. Around the notebook are a bit of the other items on the desk (grey eyeglasses, a keyboard, paper clips, a pencil, and a plate). The notebook has received 4.9/5 stars.
November 26, 2024 at 6:42 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
The last of the leaves are about to drop, but this is from my walk to and from campus this week. These colors! !De Colores!
A bright red Japanese maple in the foreground, and a bright yellow Ginko tree in the background against a white cloudy sky Bright yellow Ginko leaves on a dark concrete sidewalk, it’s been raining so the leaves are covered in raindrops Bright red and orange maple leaves on top of browning leaves with green grass peeking through. It’s been raining so the leaves are covered in raindrops
November 21, 2024 at 5:48 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
In my class yesterday we talked about biology, stress, & health. Ended by watching a bit of Unnatural Causes, a stark reminder how *all of this* stress gets under the skin & negatively affects our health. Recommend micro-dosing the news & getting outside — this sunset from my walk home last night.
A brilliant sunset, the sky is a light blue, with bright red/orange clouds. Some of the clouds are mammatus meaning they look like low hanging bubbles. In front of the sky are large oak and maple trees that have mostly lost their leaves, and appear black because of the angle of the sun.
November 19, 2024 at 11:27 AM
emhernandez.bsky.social
Our local school board chose to invest in a new, large, interactive playground at one of the schools. Open to the public when school is not in session. It is always packed and it’s bringing everyone here so much joy on this beautiful day.
A four story playground structure with multiple slides and tubes. The sky is blue with white puffy clouds.
November 17, 2024 at 6:48 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
Standing at the bottom of redwood trees with the sun peeking through against a blue sky
November 16, 2024 at 8:35 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
But we’ve witnessed a return to studying these social and structural factors in epidemiology, demography, and medicine.
Sorry I can’t get all the alt text here. It’s called Health Demography by Ichiro Kawachi and SV Subrumanian
November 16, 2024 at 1:49 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
This viewpoint fell by the wayside after germ theory became mainstream in the late 19th century. When scientists discovered the microbes responsible for tuberculosis, plague, cholera, dysentery, and syphilis, most fixated on these newly identified nemeses. Societal factors were seen as overly political distractions for researchers who sought to “be as ‘objective’ as possible,” says Elaine Hernandez, a medical sociologist at Indiana University. In the U.S., medicine fractured. New departments of sociology and cultural anthropology kept their eye on the societal side of health, while the nation’s first schools of public health focused instead on fights between germs and individuals. This rift widened as improvements in hygiene, living standards, nutrition, and sanitation lengthened life spans: The more social conditions improved, the more readily they could be ignored.
November 16, 2024 at 1:42 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
Read about Virchow 👇🏼
covid-19 has already changed science immensely, but if scientists are savvy, the most profound pivot is still to come—a grand reimagining of what medicine should be. In 1848, the Prussian government sent a young physician named Rudolf Virchow to investigate a typhus epidemic in Upper Silesia. Virchow didn’t know what caused the devastating disease, but he realized its spread was possible because of malnutrition, hazardous working conditions, crowded housing, poor sanitation, and the inattention of civil servants and aristocrats—problems that require social and political reforms. “Medicine is a social science,” Virchow said, “and politics is nothing but medicine in larger scale.”
November 16, 2024 at 1:42 PM
emhernandez.bsky.social
All I could do was make comfort food on Weds, this is posole (as my family spells it, pozole for some). Time/labor intensive, but the depth of flavor rewards. Pair with homemade tortillas and you have a regular meal in my grandparents house.

Recipe: tastesbetterfromscratch.com/pozole/
Bowl of red posole (looks like soup) with cilantro, red cabbage, radish, and onion
November 9, 2024 at 11:21 PM