IJE Advance Access originally published online on January 16, 2006
International Journal of Epidemiology 2006 35(3):515-519; doi:10.1093/ije/dyi322
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Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association © The Author 2006; all rights reserved.
Editorial |
Complexity, simplicity, and epidemiology
1 Centre for Public Health Research, Massey University Wellington Campus, Private Box 756, Wellington, New Zealand
2 Department of Biomedical Sciences and Human Oncology, University of Turin, Italy
* Corresponding author. Centre for Public Health Research, Massey University Wellington Campus, Private Box 756, Wellington, New Zealand.E-mail: n.e.pearce@massey.ac.nz
Keywords Epidemiology, complexity, risk factors, social theory
Accepted 4 January 2006
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Introduction
It is difficult, nowadays, to open a popular science magazine, or a leading science journal, without reading about complexity, the approach to science that is expected to ‘define the scientific agenda for the 21st century’.1 Complexity theory is influencing fields as diverse as physics,2 cosmology,3 chemistry,4 geography,5 climate research,6 zoology,7 biology,8 evolutionary biology,9 cell biology,10 neuroscience,11 clinical medicine,12 management,13 and economics.14 However, it has to date had relatively little influence on the theory and practice of epidemiology.15 In this paper we review the basic concepts of complexity theory and discuss their relevance to epidemiology.
Complexity
It should be stressed that although many phenomena are complex,15 the concept of ‘complexity’ is more specific. Complexity is the study of complex adaptive systems. These have been defined as ‘a collection of individual agents with freedom to act in ways that are not always totally predictable, and whose actions are interconnected so that one agent's
Epidemiology
Communicable disease
Non-communicable disease
Conclusions
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