Table 1.

Theory and Methods of Social Epidemiology, Psychopharmacology, and Sociopharmacology

	Social epidemiology	Psychopharmacology	Sociopharmacology
Level of analysis	Focus at the sociocontextual and system level	Focus at the individual level	Focus on interactions across sociocontextual and individual levels
	Assumes determinants of tobacco use differ across populations	Assumes determinants of tobacco use are common across populations	Assumes a common set of determinants of tobacco use that differ in strength or relevance across populationsIdentifies proximal factors that channel distal influences on tobacco use behavior
	Identifies distal influences on tobacco use behavior	Identifies proximal influences on tobacco use behavior
Example theoretical constructs	Discrimination	Drug reward	Discrimination serving as a conditioned cue triggering tobacco use
	Cultural acceptance of smoking	Drug-induced reward enhancement	Nicotine-induced distraction away from attending to cues reflecting neighborhood disorder
	Targeted marketing of tobacco products to disparity groups	Negative reinforcement	Nicotine-induced enhancement of the reward value of reinforcers in socioeconomically-deprived environmentsGreater value placed on the arousal-enhancing effects of nicotine for blue-collar workers whose jobs require high levels of arousal
	Physical environment (eg, density of tobacco retailers in communities with high prevalence of people from TRHD groups)	Withdrawal
	Reduced access to health care	Behavioral economic value
	Biases in the legal system	Drug-induced changes in cognitive performance
	Neighborhood deprivation and crime	Conditioning of drug-related and other cues
	Social class	Alternative reinforcers
	Clustering of biological vulnerability	Pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic processes underlying drug effects
Methodology	Naturalistic, correlational, or descriptive designs	Experimental designs	Quasi- or fully-experimental designs crossing a sociodemographic TRHD variable or social determinant of TRHD with a psychopharmacological manipulation
	Large community samples	Smaller samples	Correlational designs examining the relation between a social determinant of TRHD and a psychopharmacological cause or consequence of tobacco use
	Data often collected in the field	Data often collected in the laboratory	Value on both internal and external validity
	High value on generalizability and ecological validity	High value on internal validity and isolating narrow mechanisms
	Evidence for causal effects is modest	Evidence for causal effects is strong
	Statistical control emphasized	Experimental control emphasized
	Basic methodology: studying naturalistic associations of sociodemographic variables or social constructs to tobacco use variables	Basic methodology: studying the effects of experimentally-manipulated tobacco administration or deprivation on variables indicative of addiction liability
Intervention	Target policy and system-level change	Pharmacotherapy	Combination of pharmacotherapy and/or behavioral interventions that offset sociocontextual and psychopharmacological determinants of tobacco use
	Individual-level interventions are adapted for use in specific populations	Interventions are not generally adapted for use for specific populations	Targeting psychopharmacological mechanisms linking sociocontextual factors and tobacco use when social factors are immutable
	Behavioral interventions incorporate sociological constructs (eg, culturally-adapted counseling)	Behavioral interventions that target psychopharmacological processes (eg, contingency management to reinforce abstinence)	Personalized medicine tailored to population based on biological/social factors (eg, polygenetic risk score, sociodemographic risk assessment)
	Risk propensity assessment

TRHD = tobacco-related health disparities.