Health professionals’ interest in social and behavioral science is rapidly increasing due to the growing recognition that social factors such as income, education, race, gender, and age all impact individuals’ health. These and other social conditions also shape patients’ illness experiences, the ways that they interact with health care providers, and the effectiveness of with which health professionals provide care. Understanding these social determinants and applying them to clinical practice is a major challenge for healthcare providers, which is why programs and accrediting bodies have been including more social and behavioral science content into the curricula for medical, nursing, and allied health programs.

Social and Behavioral Science for Health Professionals provides in-depth coverage of the social determinants of health and how to directly apply these insights in clinical practice, thereby enhancing clinicians’ ability to engage their patients and more effectively render care. Broken into four parts, the book opens with the foundations of social science and health, including the shifting landscape of health and healthcare. The authors then cover the way in which social determinants of health shape large-scale features of health and illness in society, how they influence interactions between patients and providers in clinical settings, and how they shape health care systems and policies.

Threshold concepts in each chapter focus on conceptual and transformative learning while learning objectives, activities, and discussion questions provide instructors and students with robust sets of learning aids that intentionally focus on practical clinical, epidemiological, and policy issues. Ideal for students, educators, and professionals in health care, medical sociology, public health, and related fields, Social and Behavioral Science for Health Professionals is the only introduction available that clearly articulates why social and behavioral science matter in clinical care.

New to This Edition:

• New Chapter 13 on Comparative Health Care Systems covers four models of health care systems and expands the global focus of the book
• Greater emphasis on the LGBTQ+ community provides coverage of how gender expression and sexual orientation influence health and quality of care received
• New coverage of current issues such as the opioid crisis and vaccine hesitancy that have been rendered especially important by the COVID-19 pandemic
• Added discussion questions at the end of every chapter strengthen students’ critical thinking skills and abilities to apply new insights to practical, real-world examples.