[Life Course Epidemiology and the Social Sciences: Living Apart Together?]

Life course influences are being increasingly considered as a key to better understanding of health and social inequalities in health. Our aim is to examine the potential of a broader interdisciplinary perspective on the life course and health, one that integrates sociological and psychological theory and generates greater dialogue between epidemiology and the social sciences. The paper reviews major principles and concepts applied in different disciplines that deal with life course and proposes a theory-driven research framework which better informs interdisciplinary exchange and illustrates how a bio-psycho-social perspective on life course can be infused more fully into epidemiology. The paradigmatic principles of interdisciplinary life course research (human agency, timing in lives, linked lives, historical context) provide a strong theoretical framework for a holistic and theory-based view of life course and its interdependent pathways. The stress process represents an important aetiological mechanism between the organising concepts of the life course and health. To better understand the development of health and health inequalities across the life course, an interdisciplinary approach is required. The suggested theoretical contributions to models of epidemiological life course research supplement the long appreciated methodological focus of the field and will encourage interdisciplinary dialogue.