Social Medicine Consortium (SMC)

Convening conferences since 2016 focusing on organizing, empowerment and justice

The Social Medicine Consortium (SMC) is a collective of committed individuals, universities and organizations fighting for health equity through education, training, service and advocacy, with social medicine at its core. Recognizing that the perspectives of many are systematically excluded from dialogue and decisions, and convinced that we are all more effective when a wide variety of voices are included, we actively seek diverse geographic, professional, racial, and class perspectives in our consortium.

Model

Vision & Goals

Defining Social Medicine

Health professionals are regularly exposed to health outcomes directly tied to the social determinants of health but often have limited training on how to effectively respond to these drivers of health. This is largely due to an absence of routine training on these drivers. The Social Medicine Consortium aims to address this significant gap by convening thought leaders from across the health professions, paying particular attention to the voices that are often excluded from these conversations. SMC serves as a platform for participants to learn from and interact with leaders in the domains of social medicine, global health, and social justice, creating a unique opportunity for engaged conversation on deepening the integration of social medicine into health profession education.

The Social Medicine Consortium works toward health equity by constructing systems that demand justice, recognize our global interconnectedness, and enable the next generation of health professionals.

We aim to drive a global transformation in health professional education that deepens engagement with social medicine as a core component of training so that health professionals emerge better prepared to partner with patients and communities, identify and respond to the social determinants of health, and advance health equity

Social Medicine is the practice of medicine that integrates:

Understanding and applying the social determinants of health, social epidemiology, and social science approaches to patient care,

An advocacy and equity agenda that treats health as a human right,

An approach that is both interdisciplinary and multi-sectoral across the health system,

A deep understanding of local and global contexts ensuring that the local context informs and leads the global movement, and vice versa,

Voice and vote of patient, families, and communities.

History

Attendees

Past Conferences

In 2015, the Social Medicine Consortium was envisioned among friends and colleagues to achieve health equity by constructing systems that demand justice, recognize our global interconnectedness, and support the next generation of health professionals to organize and act.

Leaders, activists, educators, civil society, researchers, policy makers, and students both within and outside the health sector come together to facilitate learning, share experiences, and collaborate on collective actions. These coalitions transcend traditional power structures and utilize disruptive activism to redistribute power and center marginalized voices.

  • 2016: Reimagining Social Medicine — Minneapolis, MN, USA (800+ attendees)

  • 2017: Beyond Reimagining: Accelerating Praxis, Social Medicine in Practice — Chicago, IL, USA (450+ attendees)

  • 2018: Sharing Strategies for Health Equity: Social Medicine in Action — Churchrock, NM, USA (400 + attendees)

  • 2019: Sustaining the Global Struggle for Health Equity Locally: Building Across Difference — Jaltenengo de la Paz, Chiapas, Mexico (500 + attendees)

  • 2020: Global Social Medicine Summit: Building Community, Critical Consciousness and a Movement for Health Equity — Virtual (500+ attendees)

Contact SMC