ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 historically traces population health science to a series of twentieth century insights about the social nature of health: (1) health is metaphysically social, (2) health is empirically social, (3) health is ethically inseparable from social empowerment, and (4) methodologies of health research and health promotion must engage with health as a social phenomenon. In 1946, the World Health Organization declared that health is the presence of complete well-being, including social well-being. It was not until the 1970s and 1980s that new data emerged to solidify the case that individuals’ and populations’ health are largely causally determined by social forces. This empirical data led to the World Health Organization’s dual embrace of health empowerment: empowering individuals and their communities as pragmatically essential according to emerging data on the social science of health, and also health empowerment as ethically essential as a means of promoting population health without committing paternalistic abuses. This commitment to empowerment spurred the development of new methodologies of research and intervention, such as community-based participatory research.
