Social and Behavioral Science for Health Professionals

Social and Behavioral Science for Health Professionals examines various social and behavioral factors that affect health and illness, with a particular focus on how these phenomena inform clinical practice. The book introduces interdisciplinary insights from fields like sociology, psychology, and epidemiology to elucidate important and often problematic features of patient care routinely confronting physicians, nurses, and other allied health practitioners. Each chapter provides clear learning objectives and is organized around core concepts to facilitate clinicians’ abilities to think in new and expanded ways about health and illness, as well as patient and professional interactions. The content explores the implications of a shifting epidemiological landscape; the critical roles of social factors as fundamental causes of health and disease; health disparities; the medicalization process and resulting changes in diagnostic patterns and expectations of practitioners; understandings of the illness experience of patients; interpersonal and interprofessional collaboration; clinical bioethics and the social psychology of ethical decision-making; and the significance of health system design and health policy. As a result, the book represents an important resource for improving patient care, particularly at a time when health is more intricately linked to social and behavioral conditions than ever before.

Special Features of Social and Behavioral Science for Health Professionals:

Presents a genuinely interdisciplinary approach to various social and behavioral aspects of health. Emphasizes the clinical implications of various social and behavioral science insights for health, illness, and patient care. Addresses multiple dimensions of health and disease, from social conditions to disease epidemiology to the social psychology of illness experience and interpersonal communication. Each chapter provides clear learning objectives that emphasize critical content. Responds to the changing expectations in medical, nursing, and allied health education, which increasingly require training in the social and behavioral aspects of health and illness. The Instructor’s Manual includes a detailed grid that maps each chapter to the core competencies of various health care fields including medicine, nursing, physician assistant, dentistry, and more. A sample course syllabus is also included. Specific health professions included in the core competencies grid are:
LCME (allopathic medicine) AAMC (allopathic medicine) AACOM (osteopathic medicine) ADEA (dentistry) CODA (dentistry) ARC-PA (physician assistants) AACN (nursing) ACPE (pharmacy) CCE (chiropractic) Focusky and PowerPoint® presentations are available for each chapter. Focusky is a software package that allows instructors to provide dynamic presentations in class, and the authors have provided one presentation for each chapter.

Dr. Brian P. Hinote is associate professor and administrative fellow at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. In addition to clinical and research experience in areas as diverse as pediatrics, neurology, and cell biology, Dr. Hinote’s interdisciplinary work appears in multiple books and peer-reviewed journals in the social sciences, nursing, and medicine. With previous research stretching across multiple continents, his most recent work focuses on the various ways that social and behavioral science perspectives intersect and inform health care delivery and policy, clinical practice, and the work of various health professions. As a researcher and experienced educator, Dr. Hinote possesses valuable expertise working with students in various health fields, as well as health professionals already in the workforce.

Dr. Jason Adam Wasserman is associate professor of Biomedical Sciences at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine where he serves as course director for Medical Humanities and Clinical Bioethics. He also teaches a variety of courses in bioethics and medical sociology and serves as Faculty Advisor on Professionalism. His scholarly work has focused moral reasoning patterns in clinical ethics, the medicalization of homelessness, the sociological impacts of the epidemiological transition on medicine, and the influences of neighborhood infrastructures and community networks on health outcomes among the urban poor. His 2010 book, At Home on the Street, explored sociological phenomena surrounding street homelessness and was awarded honorable mention for the Annual Book Award from the Association for Humanist Sociology. He also codirected a documentary film entitled American Refugees: Homelessness in Four Movements (2011).