CAPACITY BUILDING FOR HEALTH SOCIAL-SCIENCE - THE INTERNATIONAL CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY NETWORK (INCLEN) SOCIAL-SCIENCE PROGRAM AND THE INTERNATIONAL FORUM FOR SOCIAL-SCIENCE IN HEALTH (IFSSH)

This paper describes the unfolding of two complementary efforts to bui ld global capacity in health social science. The INCLEN model aims to infuse a genuine transdisciplinary perspective into international heal th through equipping social scientists to speak a common language with clinical epidemiologists and sensitising clinicians to the ways socia l sciences contribute to research and policy. Issues are raised pertin ent to the model's viability, including recruitment of scholars for fe llowships, curriculum substance, and mechanisms for integrating social science fellows when they return home. The future success of the INCL EN program, and comparable donor initiatives, depends upon a wider inf rastructure of career supports played out at the international level i n which donor and operating agencies nourish the emergence of an expan ded body of health social scientists. The International Forum for Soci al Sciences in Health (IFSSH) has been formed to help build this infra structure and provide impetus for a viable scientific community of hea lth social scientists. The IFSSH 'global agenda' is portrayed and an i llustration is given of how this agenda is being implemented in the As ia and Pacific region.