Laura Halcomb

Laura Halcomb is an assistant professor of sociology. She studies the social organization of medical markets and how cultural beliefs about money and medicine shape health inequalities. She is primarily a qualitative researcher, using methods like in-depth interviews and content analysis, and she deploys a feminist analytic perspective, focused on status inequalities and outcomes. Her current research uses a multilevel analytic approach to understand how cultural beliefs about the value of treatment and the deservingness of patients shape access to essential medical care. This project builds off of her dissertation, which was funded by a National Science Foundation/American Sociological Association Dissertation Improvement Grant and a $30,000 Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellowship from the Institute for Citizens and Scholars (formerly the Woodrow Wilson Foundation). She is currently working on a book manuscript that draws on theories from economic and medical sociology to examine how oncologists and cancer patients make decisions about medical care in the wake of skyrocketing prescription drug prices and how they contend with the moral dilemmas posed by the cost of medicine. These moral problems include the valuation of treatment, the deservingness of patients, and, ultimately, the worth of lives.