The Integration of Social, Behavioral, and Biological Mechanisms in Models of Pathogenesis

One of the guiding principles of modern medical and health sciences is the discovery and description of the modes of origin and the actions of pathogenic precursors of disease. This principle facilitates the design of interventions to reduce the burden of mortality and morbidity in individuals and populations. This enterprise is challenging because of the complexity of the pathogenic mechanisms involved. Although highly intricate descriptions of these mechanisms have been developed, they have mainly been at the biological level. In this article, we focus on a relatively underexplored aspect of the complexity of pathogenic process: the integration of biological with social and behavioral causes in the same..