Advancing Health in Developing Countries: The Role of Social Research

What is the relationship between social science research and public health policy, particularly in the developing world? This question is at the heart of this collection of essays drawn from Rockefeller Foundation-sponsored conferences at Harvard University. The book examines the theoretical impact of social science research as well as specific case studies of successful applied research.

Beginning with a section on broad issues and the conceptualization of behavioral change, the volume then examines the anti-smoking movement in the United States; measures to prevent and control HIV infection in the United Kingdom, Sweden, and the United States; anti-malaria measures; and the application of dietary management and lot quality assurance sampling to public health issues in Peru. The volume concludes with a section re-examining ways social science research can have an impact on improving public health. Scholars and researchers as well as policy makers involved with health research and international development will find this collection particularly valuable.

LINCOLN C. CHEN is Taro Takemi Professor of International Health, Director of International Health Programs, and Director of the Center for Population and Development Studies at Harvard University. He has published more than 100 articles on international health.

ARTHUR KLEINMAN is Chair of the Department of Social Medicine, Professor of Medical Anthropology, and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard University. He is the author of The Illness Narratives (1988), Social Origins of Distress and Disease (1986), and Advances in Mood Disorders (with J. Becker, 1990). His works in progress include Health and Social Change in International Perspective and Pain as Human Experience: An Anthropological Perspective.

NORMA C. WARE is Instructor in Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Previously Associate Dean of Radcliffe College, she specializes in medical anthropology and cross-cultural psychiatry.