International Journal of Epidemiology 2001;30:668-677
© International Epidemiological Association 2001
Review Article |
Theories for social epidemiology in the 21st century: an ecosocial perspective
Department of Health and Social Behavior, Harvard School of Public Health, 667 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA. E-mail: nkrieger@hsph.harvard.edu
Keywords Ecology, epidemiology, gender, inequality, political science, psychosocial, race/ethnicity, racism, social class, social determinants of health, social science, socioeconomic, theory
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
‘Both thinking and facts are changeable, if only because changes in thinking manifest themselves in changed facts. Conversely, fundamentally new facts can be discovered only through new thinking.’ Ludwick Fleck (1935) Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact.1,pp.50–51
‘Once we recognize the state of the art is a social product, we are freer to look critically at the agenda of our science, its conceptual framework, and accepted methodologies, and to make conscious research choices.’ Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin (1987) The Dialectical Biologist.2,p.286
Theory
In social epidemiology, to speak of theory is simultaneously to speak of society and biology. It is, I will argue, to speak of embodiment. At issue is how we literally incorporate, biologically, the world around us, a world in which we simultaneously are but one biological species among many—and one whose labour and ideas literally have transformed the face of this earth. To conceptualize and elucidate
‘Social epidemiology’ gains a name ...
Current theoretical trends in social epidemiology
Psychosocial theory
Social production of disease/political economy of health
Ecosocial theory and related multi-level dynamic perspectives
Conclusion: theory matters
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