Social and Behavioral Foundations of Public Health

The social and behavioral sciences have come of age within public health. In this comprehensive text, a rich body of knowledge and theory from social and behavioral sciences are applied to contemporary health issues. A guiding principle of the book is the importance of social context and cultural construction in the analysis of health problems. The unifying framework is an ecosocial systems approach that addresses multiple layers of influence on health. The book enlarges the dominant "risk factor" approach to health behavior by giving in-depth attention to the social environment.

Similar volumes have addressed single disciplines and/or health and medicine are broadly defined; this text draws from many disciplines (sociology, anthropology, social psychology, demography, gerontology, economics, and history), and uses examples and case studies specifically from the forefront of public health. Students, researchers, and practitioners will find this a valuable primer of core concepts and models applied to real world problems.