January 31, 2011
by peter.taylor
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Under the life-course perspective that has developed in social and psychological epidemiology since the 1990s, researchers seek to reconstruct the complex causal processes that generate specific diseases and behavioral attributes (Kendler et al. 2005, Kuh and Ben-Shlomo 2004). However, some … Continue reading
January 25, 2011
by peter.taylor
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Idea: How do we identify and disentangle the biological and social factors that build on each other over the life course from gestation through to old age? The references below mostly relate to “life course epidemiology,” that is, fetal and … Continue reading
January 24, 2011
by peter.taylor
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Idea: How people respond to treatment may vary from one subgroup to another–When is this a matter of chance or of undetected additional variables? How do we delineate the boundaries between subgroups? Lagakos provides a statistician’s cautions about the significance … Continue reading
January 23, 2011
by peter.taylor
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Idea: Inequalities in people’s health and how they are treated are associated with place, race, class, gender, even after conditioning on other relevant variables. The issues here are not only variations or disparities, but also how to measure, track, and … Continue reading
January 22, 2011
by peter.taylor
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Idea: Statistical associations between any two variables generally vary depending on the values taken by other “confounding” variables. We need to take this dependency (or conditionality) into account when using our analyses to make predictions or hypothesize about causes, but … Continue reading
January 21, 2011
by peter.taylor
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Idea: Relationships among associations, predictions, causes, and interventions run through all the cases and controversies in this course. The idea introduced in this session is that epidemiology has two faces: One from which the thinking about associations, predictions, causes, and … Continue reading
January 20, 2011
by peter.taylor
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Idea: Collecting and analyzing data requires categories: Have we omitted relevant categories or mixed different phenomena under one label? What basis do we have for subdividing a continuum into categories? How do we ensure correct diagnosis and assignment to categories? … Continue reading
January 19, 2011
by peter.taylor
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Idea: In advising on the most effective measures to be taken to improve the health of a population, epidemiologists may focus on different determinants of the disease than a doctor would when faced with sick or high-risk individuals. Rose (1985) … Continue reading
January 18, 2011
by peter.taylor
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Idea 1: The uses of epidemiology are many, but shift over time, and are subject to recurrent challenges from inside and outside the field. The following articles provide a variety of historical perspectives and opinion statements on this idea: Davey-Smith, … Continue reading
January 17, 2011
by peter.taylor
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Idea: Detailed observation (like a naturalist) or detective work–albeit informed by theoretical ideas–may be needed before we can characterize what the phenomenon is we are studying, what questions we need to ask, and what categories we need for subsequent data … Continue reading