ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews some of the evidence supporting the contention that social factors are important as determinants of health status and to indicate the further steps needed to augment knowledge in this field and to increase the efficiency of future research endeavors. Somewhat paradoxically, some of the more convincing evidence concerning the role of social factors as determinants of disease comes from animal studies. Social factors have also been shown to be important in rheumatoid arthritis, level of blood pressure, coronary heart disease, and level of serum cholesterol. The assumption is that social "stress" situations are indirect indications of some other processes responsible for the diseases. These processes common to both the social situation and the diseases would include the possibility of selection and/or physical factors. To the physical scientist the measurement of so intangible an entity as anxiety may seem a bit of a wild goose chase.
