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Hi, and welcome to our first week.Today, we're going to talk about thebackground and history of socialepidemiology.The main goal of this whole lecture is tohelp you understand the landscape of whatsocial epidemiology is and isn't.And some key features to help you reallyfeel for what the disciplines all aboutand what work can be done and why it'shopefully helpful to you.There are four parts to this overalllecture, this first week.The first one is what we're going to talkabout soon, which is what is socialepidemiology?We're going to have another module orpart, on where social epidemiology camefrom.And I suppose it's worth saying that,I'll find myself routinely saying socialepi instead of social epidemiology.That's the shortcut that I typically use.

The third part, we're going to talk aboutthis central questions.Now we're going to have a whole week ofthis.So this'll just be a highlight, buthopefully you can get a feel for whatwe're doing.Then finally I want to talk about wheresocial epidemiology is headed, strengthsand weaknesses.Again to give you a sense of the overalllandscape.For this week, this overall lecture,

you're going to have three readingassignments.And they're simply hooked up to,hyperlinked or URL to the Courserawebsite.So, please read those 'cuz, as Imentioned earlier, there'll be a quizthat incorporates, not only the lectures,but these readings as well.Okay, so let's get into it.The first part of this overall lectureis, what is social epidemiology?Well, to understand that, let's first

take a step back and ask, what isepidemiology?[COUGH] Well, epidemiology by definition,is a study of what is upon the people.And we can find this in Wikipedia, or anyother major dictionary, and it comes fromthe Greek.and it's about studying groups ofpeople,[COUGH] .That surprisingly lots of people will say

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epidemiology is about the study ofepidemics.And that's true, but I want to offer youas a broader sense of the word epidemic.Many people will think that epidemiologyis about studying cool, fascinating,scary, diseases, bacteria viruses, suchas Ebola.And here in the slide you can see apicture of a worker in a, probably a CDClab, or something like that, in a securesuit.Epidemiology is certainly about studying.Scary things such as Ebola, epidemics ofthem, as I said, it's a broader question.So if we just take the case of Ebola,something we see in the news or at leastdid in a few years back.Scary virus that makes people sick anddie rather quickly.If we take it from a social epidemiologyperspective we can ask deeper questionsor further questions.And that is, hm, someone got infected.

How does the next person get infected?Typically through human interaction.And depending on the bug, it's a touch,it's a sneeze, it's being in closeproximity.That's all true.And infectious disease epidemiologiststudy this every day.And they calculate things, such astransmission probability.In social epidemiology, we can ask whyare the people around the first person.Why are they there?

Do they have to be there?Is there some reason they're in the sameworkplace, in the same family, samesocial network?And so social epidemiology includes, ifyou will, the typical case of an Ebolainfection and expands it to ask the nextquestion of, why some and not the others?And then how does the bacteria or virusspread through the social network?Did someone get on a n airplane for abusiness trip?Travel across the land, travel across an

ocean?And then bring that virus or bacteria tosomeone else, say in Chicago orBangladesh.These questions are what drives socialepidemiology.So in some, while it's absolutely truethat epidemiologists study interesting,cool and scary things such as ebola andother viruses, HIV, of course.

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What I want to say to you is thatepidemiology studies more than this.Things such as auto accidents, smoking.And these things can all be understoodpartially through the social epidemiologyframework.Now, more formally, epidemiology is ascience that studies population health.That last part's very important.We want to understand the health ofpopulations.Not a particular person, per say.So, we want to understand the health of anation, a state, a part, NorthernHemisphere, Southern Hemisphere.And ask questions about why this group ishealthy or why are they not healthy?In many textbooks about epidemiologyyou'll see a definition something like,epidemiology is the study of thedistribution and determinants of diseasein a population.So, the distribution.How many people are sick?

What age group are the people that aresick?Determinants.Why are they sick?What could have prevented them from beingsick?And so that's a pretty standard textbookdefinition.Epidemiology can simply be broken downinto two parts.That is the group that studiessurveillance, counting up how many peopleare sick.

Are they young, are they old, do theylive here, do they live there?This is very important work and manyhealth departments around the world dothis.Another part of epidemiology, sometimesit's the same, studies etiology.This is the study of causes.So quite a part, or somewhat separatefrom studying who's sick, we can ask whythey are sick.What caused them to get sick?In here is where the distinctions between

subdisciplines of epidemiology becomequite illuminated.The traditional or textbook view orparadigm of epidemiology has threeprincipal parts.The agent, the infectious agent, if youwant.The environment, this is sort of thebiological environment in which someoneor some animal lives.

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And then the host, and this is the personor animal who gets the disease.And, of course, time is always moving.So we talk about agent-host environment,and epidemiology is typically focused onthis, and that's quite appropriate.Push come to shove, however epidemiologyis mostly about studying diseases andasking questions about why did someoneget the disease.And this is a question of exposure ortreatment.We're you exposed to a flu virus.We're you exposed to toxic pollution.Were you exposed to a really excellenteducation when you were a child.How do these kinds of things yield healthof persons, that get aggregated up orgrouped together that creates health forpopulations?So, what is social epidemiology?And we'll come back to this.Social epidemiology is the branch ofepidemiology, that considers how social

interactions and collective humanactivities affect health.That's a of words.What does it mean?Well social epidemiology can be said tobe the sub-discipline of epidemiology,the population health science thatstudies how society.Social arrangements such as families,social networks, friendship groups affecthealth.Laws, policies, social norms, how dothese things load the gun if you will, to

affect health?We often talk about how societies make ussick.But it's more technically appropriate totalk about.How social systems make us sick andhealthy?The word social system is just broader,more technically accurate than society.And it lets us interface with otherdisciplines, such as sociology,anthropology and economics.So, I'll use the terms society and social

system interchangeably.But it's probably worth saying to youthat Social system is a more accuratedefinition.In the end, social epidemiology is incontrast to the fictitious characterRobinson Crusoe.You may remember the classic story, whereRobinson Crusoe is marooned on an islandand he lives by himself to save for his

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friend, Friday.But Robinson's health, of course, isdetermined by his genetics, islandweather, typhoons, sunny days.And perhaps some bacteria or other agentson a rock that he might cut his foot on.Many people think this model, this visionof health, is how we're sick or healthy.What's important to recognize, however,and what this course is really about, isthat Robinson's health is not affected byother people.But that's not the story for almost allof us.We're all affected by the friends wehave.The political systems in which we live.The laws which we abide by or not.Traffic on the highway.Cigarette smoking advertisement.All of these things, society richly andbroadly define, this is what reallydrives our health.It's in contrast to the story, the

fictitious story, of Robinson Crusoe.[SOUND]