The Dialogue between Public Health and Medical Sociology(<Special Issue 1>The Dialogue between Public Health and Medical Sociology)

Abstract

This symposium on the relation of medical sociology to publich health was an attempt to generate a new framework of the public health in Japan, comparing the existing public health as a part of medical science to the public health as an interdisciplinary science. We set forth several questions to facilitate discussions in the symposium. 1) What are the historical and cultural factors that the public health science in Japan has been developed as a part of the medical science but an interdisciplinary science? 2) Which direction will the public health in Japan be facing toward after the amendments of the rural public health system and the law? 3) If the Japanese public health science would develop as an interdisciplinary science in the near future, which sciences in social sciences and sciences of humanities should we expect to take significant roles? 4) Should we consider more seriously about the extent of the authority of medical doctors in public health? 5) We need to identify and examine the difference between the public health as a part of the medical science like in Japan and the public health as an interdisciplinary science such as in USA. Concerning to these propositions, the opinions and idea of both sides were presented in the symposium.