Social Epidemiology

Abstract

Social epidemiology lies at the intersection between the traditionally biomedical field of epidemiology, which is concerned with understanding the distribution, spread, and determinants of disease in populations, and the parts of sociology and other social sciences concerned with understanding the role of social factors, forces, and processes in the epidemiology of health and illness of individuals and populations (Syme 2001). As a field, social epidemiology has been largely created over the past half century by the combined efforts of persons trained in sociology and related social sciences to study the nature, etiology, and course of physical and mental health and illness in human populations. In some cases, they ended up more as epidemiologists than sociologists (e.g., Leonard Syme and Saxon Graham). There were also a number of pioneering physician epidemiologists, mostly from England and the British Commonwealth (e.g., John Cassel, Michael Marmot, and Mervyn Susser) who recognized the importance of incorporating psychosocial factors into the epidemiology of human health and illness.