5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

In today's world, research is increasingly focused on the social aspects of public health organization in various countries and communities worldwide. One of the most significant social determinants in health care is culture, that determines behavioral patterns and attitudes toward self-preservation behavior. Cultural dimension of public health organization is a topic of interest at the highest international level today. In particular, since the pandemic, WHO has promoted the Behavioural and Cultural Insights (BCI) approach, where culture is an object of social science research and is a factor in determining individual's personal health behavior. In contrast to the classical biomedical approach, BCI explains health status of a population through cultural determinants that set the thinking, reactions, logic of behavior and actions of people in each community, including culture influences decision-making in public health, for example, in such areas as health education, social support for preventive measures, building regional palliative or psychiatric care services and many others. Sociology's expertise and its interdisciplinary synthesis with other social and behavioral sciences are crucial here. So, we see increase in the demand for scientifically proved and evidence-based social knowledge from researchers around the world.

This section focuses on discussing the principles of cultural approach in building health policy based on research data.

Preference will be given to papers with applied sociological and interdisciplinary social science research that explore the relationship between health policy and its implementation and the sociocultural context of a particular region or community, as well as cross-cultural comparisons in this area.