Epidemiology
The The lancet Journal : Current Issue
Derived from the Greek epidemia, "prevalence of disease", and embedded in the 5th/4th century BC title of a Hippocratic treatise (Epidemics), epidemiology conceals more than its dictionary definition reveals--the branch of medical science concerned with the incidence and distribution of disease. For inherent to the concept of an "epidemic" is a model of population and a pathologisation of social space. The point of statistics is to command authority on the basis of numerical "facts", yet the study of the statistics of disease is always shaped by larger political and ideological factors. Since the 19th century, the statistics of disease have served as powerful tools for state intervention, even if the practice of epidemiology was largely observational and aimed at solving disease outbreaks.
Disciplinary status was conferred on epidemiology when it became attached to bacteriology, which shifted the study of disease statistics away from environmental factors to an emphasis on monocausal vectors. Further redefinition came through developments in biometrics, pioneered in the UK by Francis Galton (1822-1911) and Karl Pearson (1857-1936) and made acceptable to the medical profession through the efforts of Major Greenwood (1880-1949), the first epidemiologist in the UK to hold an academic appointment. In the 1920s, epidemiology underwent another metamorphosis. For epidemics were now beginning to be conceived not simply in terms of bacteriological invasions but as disturbances to equilibriums within dynamic, multicausal, and holistic disease frameworks.
By the 1960s, medical statistics and social medicine combined to regenerate the field and redefine it away from its "pattern of disease" orientation. Social epidemiology looked beyond death and disease to disability, discomfort, and dissatisfaction. It also led to the study of the relations between disease and lifestyle, most famously in the work of Bradford Hill and Richard Doll on the carcinogenic effects of smoking. But if the discipline gained new lustre, it was not to the delight of all.
By the 21st century, some lambasted social epidemiology for blinding doctors to the individual experience of disease. However, there is little reason to doubt the continuance of epidemiology's rhetorical purchase in political discourse, and in the wake of AIDS, there are few immediate fears for its disciplinary status.
Lise Wilkinson
Derived from the Greek epidemia, "prevalence of disease", and embedded in the 5th/4th century BC title of a Hippocratic treatise (Epidemics), epidemiology conceals more than its dictionary definition reveals--the branch of medical science concerned with the incidence and distribution of disease. For inherent to the concept of an "epidemic" is a model of population and a pathologisation of social space. The point of statistics is to command authority on the basis of numerical "facts", yet the study of the statistics of disease is always shaped by larger political and ideological factors. Since the 19th century, the statistics of disease have served as powerful tools for state intervention, even if the practice of epidemiology was largely observational and aimed at solving disease outbreaks.
Disciplinary status was conferred on epidemiology when it became attached to bacteriology, which shifted the study of disease statistics away from environmental factors to an emphasis on monocausal vectors. Further redefinition came through developments in biometrics, pioneered in the UK by Francis Galton (1822-1911) and Karl Pearson (1857-1936) and made acceptable to the medical profession through the efforts of Major Greenwood (1880-1949), the first epidemiologist in the UK to hold an academic appointment. In the 1920s, epidemiology underwent another metamorphosis. For epidemics were now beginning to be conceived not simply in terms of bacteriological invasions but as disturbances to equilibriums within dynamic, multicausal, and holistic disease frameworks.
By the 1960s, medical statistics and social medicine combined to regenerate the field and redefine it away from its "pattern of disease" orientation. Social epidemiology looked beyond death and disease to disability, discomfort, and dissatisfaction. It also led to the study of the relations between disease and lifestyle, most famously in the work of Bradford Hill and Richard Doll on the carcinogenic effects of smoking. But if the discipline gained new lustre, it was not to the delight of all.
By the 21st century, some lambasted social epidemiology for blinding doctors to the individual experience of disease. However, there is little reason to doubt the continuance of epidemiology's rhetorical purchase in political discourse, and in the wake of AIDS, there are few immediate fears for its disciplinary status.
Lise Wilkinson
posted by Aloyzio Achutti at 10:03 PM
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