title: [Social medicine: does it still make sense in 2013?].
abstract: Social medicine is a medicine that seeks to understand the impact of socio-economic conditions on human health and diseases in order to improve the health of a society and its individuals. In this field of medicine, determining the socio-economic status of individuals is generally not sufficient to explain and/or understand the underlying mechanisms leading to social inequalities in health. Other factors must be considered such as environmental, psychosocial, behavioral and biological factors that, together, can lead to more or less permanent damages to the health of the individuals in a society. In a time where considerable progresses have been made in the field of the biomedicine, does the practice of social medicine in a primary care setting still make sense?
authors.affiliation: Institut Universitaire de Médecine Générale Université de Lausanne. francis.vu@chuv.ch
authors.forename: Francis
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Vu
authors.affiliation: Institut Universitaire de Médecine Générale Université de Lausanne.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bischoff
authors.affiliation: Service de médecine pénitentiaire, HUG.
authors.forename: Hans
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wolff
authors.affiliation: Service de médecine pénitentiaire, HUG.
authors.forename: Idris
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Guessous
authors.affiliation: Institut Universitaire de Médecine Générale Université de Lausanne.
authors.forename: Elodie
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Dory
authors.affiliation: Institut universitaire de médecine sociale et préventive, Lausanne.
authors.forename: Françoise
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Dubois-Arber
authors.affiliation: Institut universitaire de médecine sociale et préventive, Lausanne.
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Stringhini
authors.affiliation: Institut Universitaire de Médecine Générale Université de Lausanne.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bodenmann
mesh_terms: D054624:Health Status Disparities; D006801:Humans; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012936:Social Medicine / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors