McKeown and the Idea That Social Conditions Are Fundamental Causes of Disease
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11038020 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Bruce G Link (0000-0001-9980-7450, New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute), Lexi Harari (0000-0001-7980-5407, The authors are with the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY. Bruce G. Link is also with the New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY.), Jo C Phelan (0000-0002-5031-4839), Jo Phelan (0009-0002-9068-9085, The authors are with the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY. Bruce G. Link is also with the New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY.) |
| Year | 2002 |
| Volume | 92 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 730-732 |
| Publication date | 2002-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Public Health (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0090-0036 • E-ISSN: 1541-0048 |
| Publisher | American Public Health Association (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2105/ajph.92.5.730 |
| PMID | 11988436 |
| OpenAlex | W2153469299 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 83 |
| References cited | 4 |
In an accompanying commentary, Colgrove indicates that McKeown's thesis—that dramatic reductions in mortality over the past 2 centuries were due to improved socioeconomic conditions rather than to medical or public health interventions—has been “overturned” and his theory “discredited.” McKeown sought to explain a very prominent trend in population health and did so with a strong emphasis on the importance of basic social and economic conditions. If Colgrove is right about the McKeown thesis, social epidemiology is left with a gaping hole in its explanatory repertoire and a challenge to a cherished principle about the importance of social factors in health. We return to the trend McKeown focused upon—post-McKeown and post-Colgrove—to indicate how and why social conditions must continue to be seen as fundamental causes of disease
Criminology · Disease · Environmental health · Pathology · Population · Public health · Public health interventions · Socioeconomic status · Sociology · Epidemiology · Global Health Care Issues · Health disparities and outcomes · Historical and modern epidemiology studies · Medicine
Race/Ethnicity, Health, and Mortality
Finding Pathways
Social Epidemiology
Covid-19
Income, education, and class gradients in health in global perspective
US regional and national cause-specific mortality and trends in income inequality
Gender and Mental Health
Political Economy, Capability Development, and Fundamental Cause
Persons, Places, and Times
Time Trends in Social Class Mortality Differentials in the Netherlands, 1820-1920
An ecosystem perspective in the socio-cultural evaluation of dengue in two Colombian towns
Ambulatory care sensitive hospitalizations after implementation of the master plan in Minas Gerais
Medical Adaptation to Academic Pressure
Toward Some Fundamentals of Fundamental Causality
Eudaimonic and Hedonic Well-Being
Labeling and Stigma
Prevalence, Correlates, Disability, and Comorbidity of DSM-IV Alcohol Abuse and Dependence in the United States
Addressing the “Risk Environment” for Injection Drug Users
Immigration as a Social Determinant of Health
Fundamental Causality
The Gap Gets Bigger
What (or who) causes health inequalities
Cessation Clauses, Uncertain Futures and Wellbeing among Rwandan Urban Refugees in Cameroon
Structural and Cultural Factors in Successful Aging Among Older Hispanics
Social inequalities in adult mortality across Europe (18th-21st centuries)
Spatial Aspects of Health—Developing a Conceptual Framework
Social determinants of clusters of health behaviours
Inequality in mortality in pre-industrial southern Europe during an epidemic episode
Race/Ethnicity, Health, and Mortality
A Census Tract-Level Examination of HIV Care Outcomes and Social Vulnerability Among Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, and White Adults in the Southern United States, 2018
The persistence of social inequality in adult mortality in rural Spain, death cohorts 1546–1940
How will the 2014 Commonwealth Games impact on Glasgow’s health, and how will we know
Major practicum as a learning site for exercise science professionals
Obesity rates, income, and suburban sprawl
Spatial and temporal inequalities in mortality in the USA, 1968–2016
The Role of Housing Type and Housing Quality in Urban Children with Asthma
Economic Dependence and Unprotected Sex
Life and death under son preference
Individual and contextual correlates of cardiovascular diseases among adults in the United States
Racial differences in stage at diagnosis and survival from epithelial ovarian cancer
Educational inequalities in high- vs. low-preventable health conditions
Social Capital, Economic Hardship, and Health
Improving but unequal
Health inequality in Britain before 1750
The role of income inequality and social policies on income-related health inequalities in Europe
Courtesy stigma
The Black–White Paradox in Health
Characterising climate change, colonisation, conflict & corruption as a vulnerabilising assemblage in the context of infectious disease in Haiti
Social networks and the emergence of health inequalities following a medical advance
Imprisonment and Infant Mortality
Les causes locales de la convergence
Barriers and Promoters of Mental Health Services Utilization in a Latino Context
Relationship between childhood socioeconomic position and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)
Health effects of family member incarceration in the United States
Race/Ethnicity/Nativity Differentials and Changes in Cause-Specific Infant Deaths in the Context of Declining Infant Mortality in the U.S
Absolute Change in Cause-Specific Infant Mortality for Blacks and Whites in the US
The Effects of Allostatic Load on Racial/Ethnic Mortality Differences in the United States
A Demographic Profile of Obesity in the Adult and Veteran US Populations in 2008
Time Trends in Social Class Mortality Differentials in the Netherlands, 1820–1920
Deaths from ‘diseases of despair’ in Britain
Trends in Mortality Risk by Education Level and Cause of Death Among US White Women From 1986 to 2006
Rethinking McKeown
Minority Group Status and Healthful Aging
The increasing racial disparity in infant mortality
The Role of Self-efficacy in the Recovery Trajectory of Mental Health Consumers
Democracy and child health in developing countries
Socioeconomic inequalities in death from past to present
Educational Differences in U.S. Adult Mortality
Foreclosure Risk and Community Health
Race/ethnicity, gender and the SES gradient in BMI
Black-white differences in maternal age, maternal birth cohort, and period effects on infant mortality in the US (1983-2002)
Health Power Resources Theory
Does Medical Expansion Improve Population Health
Socioeconomic and cultural differentials in mortality in a late 19th century urban setting
Explaining the Persistence of Health Disparities
Social inequality in mortality in rural Spain (1860-2010)
Trends in hospitalizations for respiratory diseases in Salvador, Bahia State, Brazil, 1998-2009
Mechanism substitution in preventive innovations
Socioeconomic Status and the Increased Prevalence of Autism in California
Determinants, correlates and mediators of psychological distress
Can sex workers regulate police? Learning from an HIV prevention project for sex workers in southern India
Medical innovations can reduce social inequalities in health
Structural Vulnerability and Health
| Unique citing works | 83 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,61 |
| Citation span | 2003 - 2026 (24) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 69 |