ArticleAmerican journal of public health1999
Reassessing the role of epidemiology in public health.
Article in American journal of public health, 1999. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Causation in epidemiology.Journal of epidemiology and community health · 2001Pooled it
- Human exposure to harmful urban traffic noise pollution levels: a case study from seoul, South Korea.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Estimating the Prevalence of Autosomal Recessive Neuromuscular Diseases in the Korean Population.Journal of Korean medical science · 2025Article
- Decolonizing Epidemiological Research: A Critical Perspective.Avicenna journal of medicine · 2023Review
- Review
- An argument for renewed focus on epidemiology for public health.Annals of epidemiology · 2016Review
- The science of epidemiology and the methods needed for public health assessments: a review of epidemiology textbooks.BMC public health · 2014Review
- Easier said than done: challenges of applying the Ecohealth approach to the study on heavy metals exposure among indigenous communities of the Peruvian Amazon.BMC public health · 2013Article
- HIV prevention, structural change and social values: the need for an explicit normative approach.Journal of the International AIDS Society · 2012Review
- Population-wide sodium reduction: the bumpy road from evidence to policy.Annals of epidemiology · 2012Article
- Reusable design: a proposed approach to Public Health Informatics system design.BMC public health · 2011Article
- Point-counterpoint. The triumph of the null hypothesis: epidemiology in an age of change.International journal of epidemiology · 2009Article
- Getting political: racism and urban health.American journal of public health · 2008Article
- Social correlates of cigarette smoking among Icelandic adolescents: a population-based cross-sectional study.BMC public health · 2008Article
- The role of the public health official in communicating public health information.American journal of public health · 2007Article
- Can ethical reasoning contribute to better epidemiology? A case study in research on racial health disparities.European journal of epidemiology · 2007Article
- Complex causal process diagrams for analyzing the health impacts of policy interventions.American journal of public health · 2006Article
- Publication visibility of sensitive public health data: when scientists bury their results.Science and engineering ethics · 2004Article
- Science and social responsibility in public health.Environmental health perspectives · 2003Review
- Undercounts and overstatements: will the IOM report on lesbian health improve research?American journal of public health · 2001Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This commentary examines the scope of epidemiology and delineates the role of epidemiology in relation to public health. Epidemiology is a science; public health is a mission that is implemented through societal action. The implications of this difference are considered, and the sufficiency of epidemiology for guiding public health is evaluated in relation to other scientific disciplines and nonscientific considerations. The authors conclude that epidemiology is not the basic science of public health but one of many contributors to guiding action. The need for public health decisions despite scientific uncertainty and the potential for epidemiologic certainty's failing to provide clear guidance to public health action emphasize the distinctiveness of these endeavors. Criticisms that epidemiology fails to solve major public health problems, such as tobacco use; that it overemphasizes methods; that it fails to meet the needs of public health practitioners; and that it isolates itself from public health ethics are unwarranted. However, epidemiology should focus on addressing issues that directly affect public health decisions and should clearly communicate information about such issues to public health workers. Public health is far more complex than merely applying epidemiology.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.