The art of medicine: Four social theories for global health

[...] the spread of the H1N1 influenza virus is made over globally into the socially threatening and culturally fearful swine flu epidemic; cancer takes on the meaning as the dread disease in the USA in the early 20th century; mental illness is stigmatised by the social construction of non-persons in China; a formerly authoritarian physician-patient relationship becomes increasingly egalitarian as cultural expectations change; and medications take on a social life of their own via informal networks and social marketing. [...] the theory of social suffering collapses the historical distinction between what is a health problem and what is a social problem, by framing conditions that are both and that require both health and social policies, such as in urban slums and shantytowns where poverty, broken families, and a high risk of violence are also the settings where depression, suicide, post-traumatic stress disorder, and drug misuse cluster.