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International Journal of Epidemiology 2001;30:46-47
© International Epidemiological Association 2001

Point-Counterpoint

Commentary: Social epidemiology. A way?

KI Macdonald

KI Macdonald, Nuffield College, Oxford, OX1 1NF, UK. E-mail: kenneth.macdonald@nuf.ox.ac.uk

Certainly let us share Zielhuis and Kiemeney's exasperation1 at the proliferation of disciplinary branches. There is no merit in devising particular insular subdisciplines; the world out there after all is what we are trying to explain, and the world comes with no guarantee that it respects (or even notices) these boundaries. (These boundaries fluctuate by language, as Mielck and Bloomfield2 report.) The task is to understand the genesis and maintenance of illness and disease, using whatever tools best work, with some hope (and perhaps indeed constraint) that such understanding maps routes to intervention.

However, that task surely entails some hesitations over Zielhuis and Kiemeney's substantive belief: ‘that shopping in neighbouring scientific fields, without thorough subject-matter knowledge, will lead to statistical results without relevant meaning.' Of . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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