Cultural epidemiology is an interdisciplinary field based on principles and methods of medical anthropology and classical epidemiology. Its contribution to health research results from a focus on illness, distinct from the disease orientation of classical epidemiology. Though rooted in the influential illness explanatory model framework, current developments in the field of cultural epidemiology refer more explicitly to determinants of health and illness beyond explanatory models based on frameworks of critical medical anthropology. This rethinking of cultural epidemiology acknowledges the need for research to consider domains of a revised Outline for Cultural Formulation referring to cultural identity, key social relations, and the impact of political economy and other structural features of society. In addition to this current work in cultural psychiatry, two other areas of research remain active: public health studies of professional and community determinants of vaccine acceptance and research on assessment and study of stigma as a clinically significant feature of illness experience, providing a clinical complement to more mainstream community studies of stigma.
