Monday, May 3, 2010

[EQ] Four social theories for global health

Four social theories for global health

Arthur Kleinman

Harvard University, Department of Anthropology, Cambridge, MA, USA

The Lancet, Volume 375, Issue 9725, Pages 1518 - 1519, 1 May 2010
doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(10)60646-0

URL: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)60646-0/fulltext

‘……………Global health, many would agree, is more a bunch of problems than a discipline. As such it lacks theories that can generalise findings—through an iterative process of knowledge construction, empirical testing, critique, new generalisation, and so on—into durable intellectual frameworks that can be applied not only to distinctive health problems, but to different contexts and future scenarios.
This lack may or may not have slowed progress in developing and implementing programmes, but it surely has limited the education of practitioners and the emergence of an intellectually robust field.

There is no contradiction between global health being both evidence-based and theory-oriented. After all, this is what characterises the social sciences and natural sciences, which together create the academic platform for global health, even if the profession of medicine, another core component, has not been a theory-rich field…..”



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“….The first social theory of global health is the unintended consequences of purposive (or social) action. Introduced by the sociologist Robert Merton, this theory holds that all social interventions have unintended consequences, some of which can be foreseen and prevented, whereas others cannot be predicted…

“….Second, is the social construction of reality, as introduced by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann in the 1960s, that has become foundational in the social sciences. This theory holds that the real world, no matter its material basis, is also made over into socially and culturally legitimated ideas, practices, and things….’”

“….The third social theory is that of social suffering, which provides a framework that holds four potentially useful implications for global health….

“….Fourth, we draw on the concept of biopower, a term coined by Michel Foucault to model the way political governance increasingly exerted its effects via the control of bodies and populations….”





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