Current Issues in Social Medicine and Public Health from the Viewpoint of Early-career Researchers: Summary of Opinions at the Social Medicine Young Retreat

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic highlighted the importance of research, practice, social contribution, and education in social medicine and public health, which relate to the core mission of universities. Early-career researchers and professionals play an important role in these domains, but little is known about the challenges and issues they encountered or recognized during this pandemic. Therefore, we summarized the opinions of 37 participants (30 early-career researchers and seven senior researchers) on this issue from discussions at the Social Medicine Young Retreat, 2019, of the Japanese Medical Science Federation. The retreat was initially planned to be held during March 5-6, 2020 in Yamanashi but was changed to be held virtually on March 5, 2021. Early-career researchers participated in group discussions on how social medicine should transform itself to serve the public during the COVID-19 pandemic. Afterward, each group provided opinions on challenges and issues in social medicine. For example, participants perceived difficulties in implementing research in a timely way and the lack of multidisciplinary collaboration. They recognized challenges in continuing practice because of the limited evidence on COVID-19. On social contribution, they described difficulties in communicating risk as professionals. They also noted issues arising from online teaching and learning. One group suggested that the essence of social medicine did not need to be changed, but methodologies should be updated to tackle multiple existing challenges. These opinions may not cover all issues but could help establish a better relationship between medicine and society in a bottom-up manner. The continuous promotion of interdisciplinary collaboration in social medicine (and basic and clinical medicine) would provide ideas to solve these issues at scale. Organizational support is warranted to ensure sustainability and scalability of these actions.