Institute For The Future

Molecular sociology: when lab research intersects with health care reform

Yesterday, I blogged about a concept in physiology known as allostatic load, and noted that the term was coined by neuroendocronologist Bruce McEwen.  According to a press release from the Rockefeller University, McEwen likes to describe himself as a "molecular sociologist," because his lab work at the university—on the impact of stress on the brain—has led him to think about how "the social environment that people are in will affect the structure and function of their brains."

 

“Our health policy is still narrowly operating on the model of infectious disease – where you have a single cause of a disease and you have an antibiotic or some thing would help cure it, like penicillin,” McEwen says. “Yet most of the diseases and disorders we’re dealing with are polygenic and multifactorial in terms of the social and environmental causes.” Take asthma and air pollution, or obesity, for instance, he says.

 

In February, McEwen moderated a panel at the Institute of Medicine (the medical unit of the National Academies and the most prominent independent medical advisory board in the country) as part of its Summit on Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public.  Referring to two previous reports to which he contributed—“The Science of Early Childhood Development” and “Reaching for a Healthier Life: Facts on Socioeconomic Status and Health in the U.S.,”—McEwen emphasized that toxic stress, especially when it occurs early on in life, "has detrimental health effects on physical and mental disorders and that that stress can come from myriad sources, socioeconomic and otherwise." Physical and sexual abuse during childhood, in particular, can have huge and lasting effects.

This slide sums up his points:

McEwen believes that his scientific research is relevant to the national policy debate in health care reform.

 

“I think it’s important for us to reach out and work with the people in positions to influence policy as well as our colleagues in social and biological sciences, and particularly to develop relationships with people who are coming at some of these questions from a different perspective. In my case, I’ve been working to bring the brain into the debate about socioeconomic status and health.”

 

If McEwen's efforts to influence the adoption of policies that break the cycle of stressors in early life adversity, he truly will have succeeded in applying science to real life in a way we might not have expected.