The Social Determination of Medical Practice

Abstract

Social Medicine and Collective Health are a field of scientific knowledge about the historical and social processes that determine the health conditions of human groups. The differentiated distribution of the health-disease process and the organized social response. Among its fundamental premises it states that such points are socially determined; This study discusses this approach with respect to the second point and proposes starting from the distinction of different domains: the economic, the political, the cultural and the ideological. By recovering general conceptual categories with concrete examples, this study seeks to break down, in a schematic and general way, the articulations between the main theoretical references of the field. The above provides a general explanation of the social determination of medical practice that subsequently can be applied to specific health problems.