Lectures from Patients to Populations: Community Medicine–May 25th

From Patients to Populations: The Promise, Practice, and Politics of Community Medicine

Bodemer Lecture, Department of Bioethics & Humanities THURSDAY, MAY 25, 2017 Sejal Patel, PhD

Community-level approaches to health and disease have gained attention among health policy makers, planners, administrators and providers.  With payment models increasingly rewarding health outcomes, healthcare providers have had to grapple with the social determinants that impact the health of their clinical populations.  What remains unclear is how providers should incorporate the social determinants into medical practice to make this shift from patients to populations.  Drawing on her book, “The Fat and Happy Town! The Roseto Study and the Promise, Practice, and Politics of Community Medicine,” Sejal Patel describes the emergence of the “risk factor” approach and the challenges of implementing a more community-level orientation to health and disease that resulted from it.  In particular, she explores the changing political economy of federally funded research, of academic medical centers, of medical specialization, and of communities themselves and how they impact the viability and success of community-level approaches to health and disease today.

Comments