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Challenges for epidemiologic research on the verge of a new era

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Abstract

Although risk factor epidemiology has achieved much, it has its limitations (e.g., a failure to reveal causal mechanisms at multiple levels). To illustrate contemporary challenges for epidemiological research, we present a dialog with examples and argue for incorporating a “systems thinking through a life course” paradigm in epidemiological research. There is an increasing interest in moving part of public health from a discipline concerned primarily with risk factors at the individual level toward one concerned with complex causal patterns which often operate across different levels in time and space (e.g., from the molecular to the population, from the past to the future, and from the distal to the proximal). However, the methodology for discovering these complex and dynamic relationships remains to be improved. We propose strategies for taking up this challenge.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Drs. Jonathan Samet, Ben Armstrong and Adrian Barnett for their constructive comments on the earlier version of this manuscript. ST is supported by an NHMRC Research Fellowship (#553043). REN is supported by an NHMRC Career Development Award.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Public Health and Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, 4059, Australia

    Shilu Tong

  2. Cancer and Population Studies Group, Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Brisbane, Australia

    Rachel E. Neale

  3. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Children’s Environmental Health, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China

    Xiaoming Shen

  4. Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Jørn Olsen

  5. University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Jørn Olsen

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  1. Shilu Tong
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  2. Rachel E. Neale
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  3. Xiaoming Shen
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  4. Jørn Olsen
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Correspondence to Shilu Tong.

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Tong, S., Neale, R.E., Shen, X. et al. Challenges for epidemiologic research on the verge of a new era. Eur J Epidemiol 26, 689–694 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-011-9615-0

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