Health, Society, and Social Science

Throughout the United States and elsewhere in the Western world since World War II, there has been a grow ing interest in medicine. As early as the 1930's, popular accounts of scientific developments began to interest lay readers in medical care and innovation. The significant involvement of social and behavioral scientists in medical education and research began a decade ago and has increased rapidly. It has become apparent that the understanding of health and disease requires a holistic frame of reference in which the psychological, social, and cultural aspects of human behavior are appropriately related to the biological nature of man and the physical environ ment in which he lives. Emphasis upon the holistic approach to medical science and upon comprehensive health care has moved medicine to seek the services of social scientists, notably in connection with public health, preventive medicine, and psychiatry. And, as conceptualization and methodology in the social sciences have matured, social scientists have increasingly tended to interest themselves in applied fields and have come to grasp the significance of health and medicine as a major focus of organized human behavior. Thus, medical science, social science, and popular interest merge to formulate con temporary approaches and norms in health care.—Ed.