American Journal of Psychiatry Audio
Jul 1, 2026 · 38 min · 13 segments
Dr. Dilip Jeste (Social Determinants of Health Network, La Jolla, CA) joins the podcast to discuss how social determinants of health…
Dilip JesteGuest
Ned KalinGuest
Aaron Van DoornHost
Dr. Jeste, medicine has long recognized the link between environmental, social factors, and other external factors on health.
But in practice, medicine has often viewed issues surrounding health in almost mechanistic terms.
Your review takes a close look at the impact of the social determinants of health in relation to psychiatric disorders, and the opportunities that recognizing those factors might open up for both research and clinical care.
I found that over centuries, medicine as a whole, including psychiatry, has focused too much on diseases and on biology.
In reality, more important than diseases are a person's health, and the way the health is defined has changed.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine published a report in 2023, and they defined whole health as physical, behavioral, spiritual, and socioeconomic well-being as determined by the individuals themselves, and not by the clinicians or the system.
And our goal should not be to treat a disease, reduce the symptoms, but really to improve the overall health of the people we are seeing as patients.
The social factors, that is what is called the social determinants of health that we have been talking about.
But all these factors, biological, psychological, and social, they have strong interactions.
Similarly, both of them can affect psychological factors, and psychological factor can affect both of them.
So the focus of psychiatry in examining people and helping them is to look at their health overall as defined by themselves, and think about the various biological, psychological, and social factors, and see how we can help all of them.
Dr. Jeste, medicine has long recognized the link between environmental, social factors, and other external factors on health.
But in practice, medicine has often viewed issues surrounding health in almost mechanistic terms.
Your review takes a close look at the impact of the social determinants of health in relation to psychiatric disorders, and the opportunities that recognizing those factors might open up for both research and clinical care.
I found that over centuries, medicine as a whole, including psychiatry, has focused too much on diseases and on biology.
In reality, more important than diseases are a person's health, and the way the health is defined has changed.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine published a report in 2023, and they defined whole health as physical, behavioral, spiritual, and socioeconomic well-being as determined by the individuals themselves, and not by the clinicians or the system.
And our goal should not be to treat a disease, reduce the symptoms, but really to improve the overall health of the people we are seeing as patients.
The social factors, that is what is called the social determinants of health that we have been talking about.
But all these factors, biological, psychological, and social, they have strong interactions.
Similarly, both of them can affect psychological factors, and psychological factor can affect both of them.
So the focus of psychiatry in examining people and helping them is to look at their health overall as defined by themselves, and think about the various biological, psychological, and social factors, and see how we can help all of them.
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