IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v66y2008i3p520-524.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Challenges and opportunities for integrative health research in the context of culture: A commentary on Gersten

Author

Listed:
  • McDade, Thomas W.

Abstract

A new generation of research in population health is drawing on models and methods from the social and biomedical sciences to combine rich measurement of everyday contexts with objective measures of physiological function and health in field-based settings. We are at the beginning of an exciting era of discovery, and this commentary focuses on two questions of particular importance to comparative research. First, how do we use biological measures to define "health"? Second, how do we define and measure social context, particularly across cultural settings? Answers to these questions, as well as others addressed by scholars working at the intersection of the social and biomedical sciences, will ultimately lead to a better, more multidimensional understanding of human biology and health.

Suggested Citation

  • McDade, Thomas W., 2008. "Challenges and opportunities for integrative health research in the context of culture: A commentary on Gersten," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 520-524, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:66:y:2008:i:3:p:520-524
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(07)00504-7
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dressler, William W. & Balieiro, Mauro C. & Ribeiro, Rosane P. & Ernesto Dos Santos, José, 2005. "Cultural consonance and arterial blood pressure in urban Brazil," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 527-540, August.
    2. Christopher Seplaki & Noreen Goldman & Maxine Weinstein & Yu-Hsuan Lin, 2006. "Measurement of cumulative physiological dysregulation in an older population," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 43(1), pages 165-183, February.
    3. Gersten, Omer, 2008. "Neuroendocrine biomarkers, social relations, and the cumulative costs of stress in Taiwan," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 507-519, February.
    4. Seeman, Teresa & Glei, Dana & Goldman, Noreen & Weinstein, Maxine & Singer, Burt & Lin, Yu-Hsuan, 2004. "Social relationships and allostatic load in Taiwanese elderly and near elderly," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 59(11), pages 2245-2257, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gersten, Omer, 2008. "The path traveled and the path ahead for the allostatic framework: A rejoinder on the framework's importance and the need for further work related to theory, data, and measurement," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 531-535, February.
    2. Panter-Brick, Catherine & Eggerman, Mark, 2018. "The field of medical anthropology in Social Science & Medicine," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 233-239.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shawna Beese & Julie Postma & Janessa M. Graves, 2022. "Allostatic Load Measurement: A Systematic Review of Reviews, Database Inventory, and Considerations for Neighborhood Research," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(24), pages 1-23, December.
    2. Noha Gomaa & Michael Glogauer & Howard Tenenbaum & Arjumand Siddiqi & Carlos Quiñonez, 2016. "Social-Biological Interactions in Oral Disease: A ‘Cells to Society’ View," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(1), pages 1-19, January.
    3. Seeman, Melvin & Stein Merkin, Sharon & Karlamangla, Arun & Koretz, Brandon & Seeman, Teresa, 2014. "Social status and biological dysregulation: The “status syndrome” and allostatic load," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 143-151.
    4. Davillas, Apostolos & Pudney, Stephen, 2020. "Biomarkers, disability and health care demand," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    5. Pham-Kanter, Genevieve, 2009. "Social comparisons and health: Can having richer friends and neighbors make you sick?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 335-344, August.
    6. Loucks, Eric B. & Juster, Robert P. & Pruessner, Jens C., 2008. "Neuroendocrine biomarkers, allostatic load, and the challenge of measurement: A commentary on Gersten," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 525-530, February.
    7. Lipowicz, Anna & Szklarska, Alicja & Mitas, Andrzej W., 2016. "Biological costs of economic transition: Stress levels during the transition from communism to capitalism in Poland," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 90-99.
    8. Eileen M. Crimmins & Sarinnapha Vasunilashorn & Jung Ki Kim & Aaron Hagedorn & Yasuhiko Saito, 2008. "A Comparison of Biological Risk Factors in Two Populations: The United States and Japan," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 34(3), pages 457-482, September.
    9. Dressler, William W. & Balieiro, Mauro C. & Ribeiro, Rosane P. & dos Santos, Jose E., 2007. "A prospective study of cultural consonance and depressive symptoms in urban Brazil," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(10), pages 2058-2069, November.
    10. Marie‐Anne S. Rosemberg & Yang Li & Julia Seng, 2017. "Allostatic load: a useful concept for advancing nursing research," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(23-24), pages 5191-5205, December.
    11. Li, Ting & Yang, Yang Claire & Zhang, Yanlong, 2018. "Culture, economic development, social-network type, and mortality: Evidence from Chinese older adults," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 23-30.
    12. Glei, Dana A. & Goldman, Noreen & Shkolnikov, Vladimir M. & Jdanov, Dmitri & Shalnova, Svetlana & Shkolnikova, Maria & Weinstein, Maxine, 2013. "To what extent do biomarkers account for the large social disparities in health in Moscow?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 164-172.
    13. Regina Frei & Sarah R Haile & Margot Mutsch & Sabine Rohrmann, 2015. "Relationship of Serum Vitamin D Concentrations and Allostatic Load as a Measure of Cumulative Biological Risk among the US Population: A Cross-Sectional Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(10), pages 1-17, October.
    14. Pathak, Gauri & Nichter, Mark, 2015. "Polycystic ovary syndrome in globalizing India: An ecosocial perspective on an emerging lifestyle disease," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 21-28.
    15. Ke Shen & Feinian Chen & Hangqing Ruan, 2021. "The mixed blessing of living together or close by: Parent–child relationship quality and life satisfaction of older adults in China," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 44(24), pages 563-594.
    16. Mattei, Josiemer & Demissie, Serkalem & Falcon, Luis M. & Ordovas, Jose M. & Tucker, Katherine, 2010. "Allostatic load is associated with chronic conditions in the Boston Puerto Rican Health Study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(12), pages 1988-1996, June.
    17. Li, Ting & Zhang, Yanlong, 2015. "Social network types and the health of older adults: Exploring reciprocal associations," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 59-68.
    18. Maes, Kenneth C. & Hadley, Craig & Tesfaye, Fikru & Shifferaw, Selamawit, 2010. "Food insecurity and mental health: Surprising trends among community health volunteers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia during the 2008 food crisis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(9), pages 1450-1457, May.
    19. Yu Tong & Chuan-Hoo Tan & Hock-Hai Teo, 2017. "Direct and Indirect Information System Use: A Multimethod Exploration of Social Power Antecedents in Healthcare," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 28(4), pages 690-710, December.
    20. Gersten, Omer, 2008. "Neuroendocrine biomarkers, social relations, and the cumulative costs of stress in Taiwan," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 507-519, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:66:y:2008:i:3:p:520-524. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.