Question

Distinguish between social and behavioral epidemiology. Formulate a hypothetical cohort study of the relationship between stressful life events and adverse mental health outcomes. Be sure to include the impact of positive and negative life events.

Answer 1

Social epidemiology refers to social and structural factors on the states of health, while behavioural epidemiology can be termed as a systematic sequence of studies on health-related behaviours, leading to evidence based populations directed at interventions.

Stressful life events and impact on mental health is still a debatable topic. In the mental health scenario, the stress diathesis model suggests that the person having stress are more vulnerable to mental illness and on the other hand if a vulnerable person has affected with stress then it can also lead to mental illness. The negative events in the child hood like any child sexual abuse, or single parenting, or neglect from the parents or severe emotional abuse in the family etc were considered as the negative life events and has a impact on the mental health on the family. The positive life events can include adequate support system, positive coping strategy, help seeking behaviour, identification of the problem behaviour at the earliest etc can be decrease the problem or can be considered as positive effects of life events.