Leigh Willis is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Georgia. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Alabama-Birmingham, and teaching areas are the sociology of medicine, and race and ethnicity in America. Current research includes African-American health, specifically seeking to improve the health status of African-Americans by examining and reducing health disparities in health and illness. A second program of research is in sexual risk. In this area, Willis has completed a study which examines levels of paternal caregiving and how that translates into sexual risk in sons. A third program of research is in mental health, specifically explaining the current incidence and prevalence of mental disorders in the U.S. and abroad, and seeking to determine if that prevalence is valid, or if it is the product of an increasing medicalization of "deviant" behavior.

Selected Bibliography

• Willis, Leigh A. 2003. "A Review of Silenced Angels." New England Journal of Medicine. March 20: 348.
• Willis, Leigh A., David W. Coombs, William C. Cockerham, Sonja L. Frison. 2002. "Ready to Die: A Postmodern Explanation of the Increase of African-American Adolescent Male Suicide." Social Science and Medicine. 55(6):169-182
• Ikeda, R., R. Mahendra, L. Saltzman, A. Crosby, L. Willis, J. Mercy, P. Holmgreen, J.L. Annest. 2002. "Nonfatal Self-Inflicted Injuries Treated in Hospital Emergency Departments—United States, 2000." Mortality Morbidity Weekly Report. (May) 51(20): 436-8.
• Willis, Leigh A. 2001. "A Review of Building Health Coalitions in the Black Community by Ronald L. Braithwaite, Sandra E. Taylor, and John N. Austin." Contemporary Sociology.