Social Conditions As Fundamental Causes Of Disease

Epidemiology is a section of medicine that deals with the occurrence, distribution and the control of diseases and other factors that connect to health. Many would believe that the study of epidemiology has been successful in identifying risk factors for major diseases (Link & Phelan 1995, pg.80). The article “Social Conditions as Fundamental Causes of Disease”, written by Bruce G. Link and Jo Phelan argue that the individualistic aspect of epidemiological research has overlooked the greater issue of social conditions of health. The authors further examine their research question by critically analyzing the important aspects of epidemiological research. The primary goal of the research is to contextualized individually-based risk factors of disease by identifying what puts people at risk of risks and the second being the social factors like socioeconomic status and other social issue are possible ‘fundamental causes’ of disease (

The authors’ research questions will allow more attention to other social issues that affect individual health problems and not just focus on singular issue but rather the abundant of social problems people face.

When the authors argue the importance of contextualizing individual- based risk they intended to use an analytical framework to understand why people get exposed to risk and also define the social conditions of individual risk factors that are related to disease. An example the authors provided is the importance of information and education when it comes to reducing the threat of AIDS. However they mention that although people receive and understand the risk factors of AIDS some people do not take advantage of such information and as medical sociologist and social epidemiologist they should contextualize the risk factors for AIDS, and try to understand why some individuals are not able to avoid such risk. Furthermore the authors argue the importance of ‘fundamental causes’