An Era of Change, 1980-2000

Medical sociology, as a general rule, followed a path parallel but slightly behind national trends in science and higher education. At the same time, relations between mainstream science, medicine, and social science were unstable. During the century prior to World War II, there was a certain consistency in the objectives they shared: social science actually played a larger role in medical research than is generally known, and both took it as their overriding objective “to use quantified data to illuminate the relationship between morbidity and mortality patterns ...and broad environmental factors.” From 1945 onward, the pace of research development quickened and diversified. Guided by strong leaders, the relationship between medicine and social science intensified, but the pattern of its interests split the next fifty years in half. The first half was dominated by several quests: for a scientific epidemiology, for a viable theory of the social psychology of interpersonal relations in therapeutic institutions, and for analysis of the sociology of the professions. The second half, beginning in the seventies, turned in focus toward socioeconomic and sociopolitical explanations of health services delivery and the organization of both the traditional and new health care institutions.

Consistency (knowledge bases) · Geography · Health care · Mainstream · Pace · Political science · Social science · Socioeconomic status · Sociology · Demography · Law · Primary Care and Health Outcomes · Public Health Policies and Education