The social sciences in health policy and practice.

In this paper the role of the social sciences in health policy and practice is analysed. The analysis focuses on the disciplines of medical sociology and health economics. The authors attempt to describe the contribution of each of the two disciplines to health policy and health practice, firstly, be reviewing their developments in the past two decades and secondly, by analysing their future perspectives. Special attention in this description is paid to the context of health policy. It is shown that there is a prominence of economists in present-day health services research and the factors which are held responsible for this situation are analysed.