Gargantuan Issue Of The International Journal Of Epidemiology Marks
The End Of Editorship By George Davey Smith and Shah Ebrahim
Last Publication
Dated December 2016 Includes Debate On Approaches To Causality In
Epidemiology
The last issue of the International Journal
of Epidemiology co-edited by
George Davey Smith and Shah Ebrahim appeared in print in
late March 2017. It is a gargantuan issue even by the standards of the
IJE which had grown enormously in size in recent years. The final
issue contains more than 75 articles, letters, and other published
items spread out over 500 pages. Many of the articles which appear in
the hard copy were actually published in
Advance
Access online over a period of 15 months from January 2016 to March
2017.
Final Issue
The much awaited issue
contains a special section on causality in epidemiology where many
articles
expressing different
perspectives on causal inference have been pulled together. The paper
which kicked-off the debate was one published in January 2016 by
Vandenbroucke, Broadbent, and Pearce in which they criticized the
potential outcomes approach to causal inference as too restrictive for
epidemiology.
Approximately two dozen of the more than 75 published
items have been made available free of charge or are open access.
Several of these, including the latest ones on causality, were only
published recently in late March.
Editors Comment
According to Ebrahim and Davey Smith, “…in this final issue of the
journal under our editorship, there are major contributions on causal
thinking in epidemiology which illuminate what modern epidemiology can
and cannot do.” And they add, “A question that remains of importance
is whether the focus on genetic and –omics epidemiology and new
methods of causal inference are freezing out applications of
epidemiology in health services, public health, and clinical
medicine.”
Farewell Message
In a farewell message
to Ebrahim and Davey Smith published as an advance article in February
2017, the Council of the International Epidemiological Association
stated that the success of the IJE in achieving a high impact factor
“…lies squarely on the shoulders of George Davey Smith and Shah
Ebrahim.”
The Council described the journal as extraordinarily
eclectic and influential” and “… a true adventure in communication for
epidemiology”.
Section on Causality
The debate about causality in epidemiology is
highlighted in a special section of this issue. As described in their
lead editorial, Ebrahim, Ferrie, and Davey Smith note that “Much
debate now centres on the overemphasis on identifying causes of
disease as the sole purpose of ‘modern epidemiology’, and with an
obsession with ever more complex statistical methodology.”
Judging by the comments of the participants in articles
written after multiple opportunities for give and take exchanges, the
different sides of the argument appear to be still divided. In one of
the latest published papers on March 27, 2017 entitled “Causal
inference—so much more than statistics”, Neil Pearce and
Debbie Lawlor conclude “…we recognize the value and power of these
methods when used appropriately and cautiously, together with other
approaches such as triangulation. The problem is how to use these new
methods critically and appropriately, rather than being captured by
them in a manner which redefines and restricts what epidemiology is.
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