Social epidemiology

Abstract

Social epidemiology has been defined as the branch of epidemiology that studies the social distribution and social determinants of health (Berkman and Kawachi 2000). As all aspects of human life are inextricably bound within the context of social relations, every conceivable epidemiological exposure is related to social factors. In this broad sense, all epidemiology is social epidemiology (Kaufman and Cooper 1999) with perhaps the latter discipline making explicit the analysis of the social determinants of health. However, the term “social” has also been used to contrast with the “individual” and especially individualist theories of society. And so for some, social epidemiology and its social theories of disease distribution stand in contrast to individualistic epidemiology, which relies on individualistic theories of disease causation (Krieger 2001a).