Social and Behavioral Science for Health Professionals

Social and Behavioral Science for Health Professionals examines various social and behavioral factors that affect health and illness, with a particular focus on how these phenomena inform clinical practice. The book introduces interdisciplinary insights from fields like sociology, psychology, and epidemiology to elucidate important and often problematic features of patient care routinely confronting physicians, nurses, and other allied health practitioners. Each chapter provides clear learning objectives and is organized around core concepts to facilitate clinicians’ abilities to think in new and expanded ways about health and illness, as well as patient and professional interactions. The content explores the implications of a shifting epidemiological landscape; the critical roles of social factors as fundamental causes of health and disease; health disparities; the medicalization process and resulting changes in diagnostic patterns and expectations of practitioners; understandings of the illness experience of patients; interpersonal and interprofessional collaboration; clinical bioethics and the social psychology of ethical decision-making; and the significance of health system design and health policy. As a result, the book represents an important resource for improving patient care, particularly at a time when health is more intricately linked to social and behavioral conditions than ever before.

Special Features of Social and Behavioral Science for Health Professionals:

Presents a genuinely interdisciplinary approach to various social and behavioral aspects of health. Emphasizes the clinical implications of various social and behavioral science insights for health, illness, and patient care. Addresses multiple dimensions of health and disease, from social conditions to disease epidemiology to the social psychology of illness experience and interpersonal communication. Each chapter provides clear learning objectives that emphasize critical content. Responds to the changing expectations in medical, nursing, and allied health education, which increasingly require training in the social and behavioral aspects of health and illness. The Instructor’s Manual includes a detailed grid that maps each chapter to the core competencies of various health care fields including medicine, nursing, physician assistant, dentistry, and more. A sample course syllabus is also included. Specific health professions included in the core competencies grid are:
LCME (allopathic medicine) AAMC (allopathic medicine) AACOM (osteopathic medicine) ADEA (dentistry) CODA (dentistry) ARC-PA (physician assistants) AACN (nursing) ACPE (pharmacy) CCE (chiropractic) Focusky and PowerPoint® presentations are available for each chapter. Focusky is a software package that allows instructors to provide dynamic presentations in class, and the authors have provided one presentation for each chapter.