Social medicine

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Social medicine is an interdisciplinary field that focuses on the profound interplay between socio-economic factors and individual health outcomes. Rooted in the challenges of the Industrial Revolution, it seeks to:

1. Understand how specific social, economic, and environmental conditions directly impact health, disease, and the delivery of medical care.
2. Promote conditions and interventions that address these determinants, aiming for a healthier and more equitable society.

Social medicine as a scientific field gradually began in the early 19th century, the Industrial Revolution and the subsequent increase in poverty and disease among workers raised concerns about the effect of social processes on the health of the poor. The field of social medicine is most commonly addressed today by efforts to understand what are known as social determinants of health.^[1]