Social epidemiology is the study of how social
interactions?social norms, laws, institutions, conventia,
social conditions and behavior?affect the health of
populations. This practical, comprehensive introduction to methods
in social epidemiology is written by experts in the field. It is
perfectly timed for the growth in interest among those in public
health, community health, preventive medicine, sociology, political
science, social work, and other areas of social research.

Topics covered are:

• Introduction: Advancing Methods in Social Epidemiology


• The History of Methods of Social Epidemilogy to 1965


• Indicators of Socioeconomic Position


• Measuring and Analyzing 'Race'


• Racism and Racial Discrimination


• Measuring Poverty


• Measuring Health Inequalities


• A Conceptual Framework for Measuring Segregation and its
  Association with Population Outcomes


• Measures of Residential Community Contexts


• Using Census Data to Approximate Neighborhood Effects


• Community-based Participatory Research: Rationale and Relevance
  for Social Epidemiology


• Network Methods in Social Epidemiology


• Identifying Social Interactions: A Review, Multilevel
  Studies


• Experimental Social Epidemiology: Controlled Community
  Trials


• Propensity Score Matching Methods for Social Epidemiology


• Natural Experiments and Instrumental Variable Analyses in
  Social Epidemiology


• and Using Causal Diagrams to Understand Common Problems in
  Social Epidemiology.

"Publication of this highly informative textbook clearly
reflects the coming of age of many social epidemiology methods, the
importance of which rests on their potential contribution to
significantly improving the effectiveness of the population-based
approach to prevention. This book should be of great interest not
only to more advanced epidemiology students but also to
epidemiologists in general, particularly those concerned with
health policy and the translation of epidemiologic findings into
public health practice. The cause of achieving a ?more
complete? epidemiology envisaged by the editors has been
significantly advanced by this excellent textbook."

?Moyses Szklo, professor of epidemiology and
editor-in-chief, American Journal of Epidemiology, Johns
Hopkins University

"Social epidemiology is a comparatively new field of inquiry
that seeks to describe and explain the social and geographic
distribution of health and of the determinants of health. This book
considers the major methodological challenges facing this important
field. Its chapters, written by experts in a variety of
disciplines, are most often authoritative, typically provocative,
and often debatable, but always worth reading."

?Stephen W. Raudenbush, Lewis-Sebring Distinguished
Service Professor, Department of Sociology, University of
Chicago

"The roadmap for a new generation of social epidemiologists. The
publication of this treatise is a significant event in the history
of the discipline."

?Ichiro Kawachi, professor of social epidemiology,
Department of Society, Human Development, and Health, Harvard
University

"Methods in Social Epidemiology not only illuminates the
difficult questions that future generations of social
epidemiologists must ask, it also identifies the paths they must
boldly travel in the pursuit of answers, if this exciting
interdisciplinary science is to realize its full potential. This
beautifully edited volume appears at just the right moment to exert
a profound influence on the field."

?Sherman A. James, Susan B. King Professor of Public
Policy Studies, professor of Community and Family Medicine,
professor of African-American Studies, Duke University