The discipline of social medicine investigates the effects of social change on developments in public health. Social medicine explores the relationships between social conditions and health using methods from epidemiology and the social sciences. It is dedicated to sociological reflection on how society shapes these relationships, taking into account the role of medicine in society. The discipline focuses on projects and initiatives that can positively influence the behavior of the individual, demographic groups or the entire population. Social medicine is part of the rapidly developing, interdisciplinary research and practice-oriented international field of health sciences/public health. It includes important disciplines such as epidemiology, sociology of health and medicine, health services research and medical ethics and bioethics.
