The American Roots of Social Epidemiology and its Transnational Circulation. From the African-American Hypertension Enigma to the WHO’s Recommendations (2020)
In 2008, the Commission on Social Determinants of Health at the World Health Organisation published a report demonstrating the existence of a socio-economic gradient for health. Though health inequalities had been apparent since at least the 19th century, the report introduced a bio-psycho-social aetiological model that was absent from 19th century social medicine, as well as from former WHO documents. To bio-psycho-social epidemiologists stress associated with social status is the main cause of morbidity and death. Here I begin by noting that the history social epidemiologists have written for their fi eld tends to inscribe their work in continuity with 19th century social medicine. This contributes towards minimizing the epistemological and contextual transformations that led bio-psycho-social epidemiology to initiate a profound transformation in international health policy. Adopting an epistemological and transnational perspective, I fi rstly argue that bio-psycho-social epidemiology emerged from René Dubos’ historical and epistemological critique of the foundation of 19th century social medicine. I secondly show how the political and epistemological research program elaborated by Dubos developed in the US context, which was characterized both by a growing concern for chronic diseases and for racial inequalities. Finally, I show that through its transnational circulation in the United Kingdom, bio-psycho-social epidemiology was “de-racialized”. This step was a prerequisite for its aetiological model to be integrated into international public health strategies and to transform them.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Anne Pollock;
(2021)
Sickening: Anti-Black Racism and Health Disparities in the United States
(/isis/citation/CBB548925523/)
Book
Thomas Abraham;
(2018)
Polio: The Odyssey of Eradication
(/isis/citation/CBB612425072/)
Thesis
Roberts, Samuel Kelton;
(2002)
Infectious fear: Tuberculosis, public health, and the logic of race and illness in Baltimore, Maryland, 1880--1930
(/isis/citation/CBB001562176/)
Thesis
Engineer, Urmi;
(2010)
Hurricane and the Human Frame: Yellow Fever, Race, and Public Health in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans
(/isis/citation/CBB001562769/)
Article
Widmer, Alexandra;
(2014)
Making Blood “Melanesian”: Fieldwork and Isolating Techniques in Genetic Epidemiology (1963--1976)
(/isis/citation/CBB001421071/)
Thesis
Carolina Major Diaz San Francisco;
(2016)
Migration, transnationalism, illness and healing: Toward the consolidation of the self among the Congolese diaspora in Boston and Lynn, MA
(/isis/citation/CBB781976165/)
Book
James Doucet-Battle;
(2021)
Sweetness in the Blood: Race, Risk, and Type 2 Diabetes
(/isis/citation/CBB627670336/)
Book
Holloway, Karla F. C.;
(2011)
Private Bodies, Public Texts: Race, Gender, and a Cultural Bioethics
(/isis/citation/CBB001200198/)
Book
Barr, Donald A.;
(2008)
Health Disparities in the United States: Social Class, Race, Ethnicity, and Health
(/isis/citation/CBB000831474/)
Article
M. Cristina Amoretti;
Elisabetta Lalumera;
(2021)
Non-epistemic factors in epidemiological models. The case of mortality data
(/isis/citation/CBB546389082/)
Article
Radin, Joanna;
(2014)
Unfolding Epidemiological Stories: How the WHO Made Frozen Blood into a Flexible Resource for the Future
(/isis/citation/CBB001421067/)
Article
Hochman, Gilberto;
Palmer, Steven;
(2010)
Smallpox Eradication and Brazil: An Interview with Donald A. Henderson
(/isis/citation/CBB001420471/)
Book
Pollock, Anne;
(2012)
Medicating Race: Heart Disease and Durable Preoccupations with Difference
(/isis/citation/CBB001420205/)
Book
Rodríguez Ocaña, Esteban;
Ballester Añón, Rosa;
Perdiguero, Enrique;
Medina Doménech, Rosa María;
Molero Mesa, Jorge;
(2003)
La acción médico-social contra el paludismo en la España metropolitana y colonial del siglo XX
(/isis/citation/CBB000410654/)
Article
Cavalcanti, Juliana Manzoni;
Maio, Marcos Chor;
(2011)
Entre negros e miscigenados: a anemia e o traço falciforme no Brasil nas décadas de 1930 e 1940
(/isis/citation/CBB001420521/)
Book
Dehner, George;
(2012)
Influenza: A Century of Science and Public Health Response
(/isis/citation/CBB001252198/)
Article
Koichi Kameda;
Ann H Kelly;
Javier Lezaun;
Ilana Löwy;
(October 2021)
Imperfect diagnosis: The truncated legacies of Zika testing
(/isis/citation/CBB603527462/)
Book
Marcos Cueto;
Theodore M. Brown;
Elizabeth Fee;
(2019)
The World Health Organization: A History
(/isis/citation/CBB989887302/)
Article
Abeysinghe, Sudeepa;
(2014)
An Uncertain Risk: The World Health Organization's Account of H1N1
(/isis/citation/CBB001420418/)
Chapter
ANA MARTA GONZÁLEZ;
(2016)
In Search of an Ethical Frame for the Provision of Health
(/isis/citation/CBB918829364/)
Be the first to comment!