This post is part of our Public Health Classics series. Sara Gorman is a frequent contributor to that series, and her Classics post on the Whitehall studies addresses a topic similar to today's subject: the influence of socioeconomic status on health.
By Sara Gorman
How much of a patient’s social context should physicians take into account? Is an examination of social factors contributing to disease part of the physician’s job description, or is the practice of medicine more strictly confined to treatment rather than prevention? In what ways should the physician incorporate public health,…