Christina - it is an interesting area. Reserach of SoDH has arguably focused more on predictors of poor health not actual causative factors and mechanisms. This means we have lots of data on who the vulnerable populations are or are likely to be in future but little understanding of the complex interplay of causative factors causing outcomes and how we can best facilitate change at different levels. These outcomes are not produced in simple ways and not everything that is important can be quantified. Though outcomes are influenced by sex, age, race and culture etc all these variations also exist in the individual. I find the following papers really useful on understanding this complexity- Forbes A, Wainwright SP. On the methodological, theoretical and philosophical context of health inequalities research: a critique. Social Science and Medicine 2001;53:801-816. Macintyre S, Ellaway A, Cummins S. Place effects on health : how can we conceptualise, operationalise and measure them? Social Science and Medicine 2002;55:125-139. Macintyre S, Chalmers I, Horton R, Smith R. Using evidence to inform health policy: case study. British Medical Journal 2001;322:222-224. Wainwright SP. A new paradigm for nursing : The Potential of realism. Journal of Advanced Nursing 1997(26):1262-1271. Wainwright SP, Forbes A. Philosophical problems with social research on health inequalities. Health Care Analysis 2000;8:259-277. A ************************************************************************' Dr Alex Clark 4th Floor Clinical Sciences Building Faculty of Nursing University of Alberta Edmonton, AB. Canada T6G 2G3 Tel: (780) 492 8347 Fax: (780) 492 2551 ------------------- Problems/Questions? Send it to Listserv owner: [log in to unmask] To unsubscribe, send the following message in the text section -- NOT the subject header -- to [log in to unmask] SIGNOFF SDOH DO NOT SEND IT BY HITTING THE REPLY BUTTON. THIS SENDS THE MESSAGE TO THE ENTIRE LISTSERV AND STILL DOES NOT REMOVE YOU. To subscribe to the SDOH list, send the following message to [log in to unmask] in the text section, NOT in the subject header. SUBSCRIBE SDOH yourfirstname yourlastname To post a message to all 1000+ subscribers, send it to [log in to unmask] Include in the Subject, its content, and location and date, if relevant. For a list of SDOH members, send a request to [log in to unmask] To receive messages only once a day, send the following message to [log in to unmask] SET SDOH DIGEST To view the SDOH archives, go to: https://listserv.yorku.ca/archives/sdoh.html