This book provides a nice overview of current directions in social epidemiology related to health and social interaction measurement. Social epidemiology is not only concerned with classical proxys for quality of life or health related indicators but researchers also try to uncover the social framework upon which these indicators can be elaborated.

It covers a wider range of theoretical considerations, ranging from census data and socio-economic classifications (Chapters 3 and 9), the way different subpopulations might be segregated according to social criteria such as racial or income level stratum. All of these criteria potentially lead to the determination of community membership that could explain much of the observed discrepancy between health status of targeted subpopulation in the world. Whereas classical epidemiology is primarily concerned with health assessment after having adjusted response variable for potential cofactors or discussed confounding effect, it is shown that such environmental variables have to be taken into account when one wants to draw reliable conclusion not limited to the studied subpopulation.

For those who might be interested, I’m maintaining (often from time to time) a small database of some recent articles related to Epidemiology and quality of life studies. Most of the article are available as pdf on the web when new issues of Emerging Themes in Epidemiology or Health and Quality of Life Outcomes are published online.