The mission of the U.A.B. department of Sociology is to: "Provide high quality instruction to students, service to the university, community, state and nation, and research providing original contributions to the discipline of Sociology and policy relevant information for health and medicine. 

The focus of instruction at the graduate level is the sociology of health and medicine.  While the Department will strive to maintain and improve a methodologically based approach to general sociology for students, its primary objectives with respect to graduate students is to train medical sociologists.  The future development of the Department will continue and enlarge on that focus, maintain its partnership with the Schools of Medicine and Public Health, and pursue research of theoretical and practical significance with a focus on the national as well as international scene.