The conference on Philosophy of Epidemiology hosted by the University of Johannesburg in December 2011 was the first of its kind, to the best of the knowledge of anyone present. The aim was to bring together philosophers of science, epidemiologists, and others with an interest in the pushing forward thought on the conceptual and methodological challenges that epidemiology faces.

Challenges

Such challenges include 1) the best way to think and talk about causation, 2) the right way to approach causal inference for scientific and practical purposes, 3) the relative merits of different measures of strength of association, 4) the merits and limitations of various study designs, and 5) the existence and nature of any special political and social obligations upon epidemiologists, among others.

Potential Benefits

The premise of the conference was that both epidemiology and philosophy of science stand to gain from philosophical study directed specifically at epidemiology. Alfredo Morabia, Columbia University epidemiologist in attendance at the conference, told the Monitor, “these persons [non-epidemiologists] from different backgrounds with a level of knowledge about epidemiology and with a good training in basic epidemiology are dissecting epidemiology under a microscope. They are describing what epidemiologists do, the way we think, the way we measure, the way we try to justify our inferential process, and why we can say a causal association exists. We will learn a lot from this process. This is going to lead somewhere.”

Good Omen

The speakers covered a wide range of topics and hailed from a variety of academic disciplines, but they shared this dual emphasis on conceptual and practical questions. This is a good omen for this nascent area of study. The overriding impression from the papers taken together was of a process of real mutual learning, of a kind often hoped for but less often observed in interdisciplinary meetings. This is confirming evidence for the hypothesis that interaction between philosophers and epidemiologists can be fruitful for both.

Outcomes

One of the concrete outcomes of the conference was a plan to establish a Philosophy of Epidemiology section in the journal Preventive Medicine, using papers arising from the conference as a springboard. Plans are also under consideration for a larger event intended in part to raise the profile of work on these topics that has been taking place over the last few years, and to demonstrate the utility of this kind of conceptual work for epidemiological progress.

A copy of the abstracts from the conference is available here: