What is the difference between epidemiology and demographic theories

At least, that was one of the cases made here. My initial observation is that this is largely true; most of my epidemiologist colleagues are pharmacists, bio-medical scientists or medical doctors first, and epidemiologists second. They will engage a problem at the micro level, and afterwards perhaps generalize to the macro level; whereas demographers are more prone to work the other way around. This different approach may also lead us to different conclusions and recommendations.

Therefore, despite the strong similarities and common roots, there are also many small differences, resulting in synergy when the two fields are combined. Pharmacoepidemiologists and Demographers can learn a lot from each other. For the more adventurous demographers with health interests, there are some promising new subfields in which we can immerse ourselves.

My primary interest is in the combination of pharmacoepidemiology and demography. Pharmacoepidemiology , the study of prescription drug use and its consequences in populations, is a fairly new discipline and therefore quite untouched by demographers, yet advances in drug research can have a profound impact on populations and therefore deserves our attention.

To give some other perhaps better examples of the future directions of demography and health, I expect to see some very interesting results from biodemographic research e. This research puts human ageing and mortality in the context of biological ageing and the mortality of animals in general. One finding may be that humans are not so different from other animals, meaning we will be able to answer important questions on disease progression and mortality through the proxy of animal research.

Alternatively, we will find the ways in which we differ from other species which is informative in its own right. A final example that should be mentioned is that demographers are also becoming more involved in genetics though this is not limited to ageing and mortality; we hope to a have a post on the topic of genetics and fertility in the near future from an investigator specialising in this.

Insight from this field may radically alter current theories on human behaviour, which still tend to be more social rather than biologically informed. It is quite likely that I missed some promising new subfields of demography, so I would love to know what you think worth the attention of the community of demographers. Comments or questions are also much appreciated! Maarten J. Bijlsma is an editor of Demotrends. His personal website can be found here.

Reblogged this on My Journey in the World of Epidemiology. There was actually a forum on this topic at the last PAA. Epidemiology sounded much more modern: caring about risks, heterogeneity, effect sizes, endogeneity aka confounding , actual diseases and their etiology.

Thanks for your comment Philipp! Demographic techniques are still being refined and demographic trends, as you know, are changing e. Epidemiology is probably changing faster, though but in the end, the big developments are going to be interdisciplinary.

At least, if you dare to wander into other disciplines a bit ;P. Basically demography studies the change of the population in terms of its size, influenced by fertility, mortality and migration. Of course many demographers and public health scientists do also perform studes at the micro level e. What makes a population sick e. As many practioners as for instances MDs are trapped in their focus on persons in their daily work, the counterintuitive system-level thinking — which is natural for demographers — could add a lot to many fields in health and elsewhere.

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Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. Simplistic divisions of the social and biological will not suffice. Consider, too, how an ecosocial perspective can contribute to unravelling the unexplained excess risk of hypertension among African Americans. Suggesting much work remains to be done, however, few of the proposed pathways have been extensively studied and, to date, fewer than 25 epidemiological studies have explicitly investigated somatic consequences of racial discrimination—a mere 0.

In conclusion, theory matters: both to define social epidemiology and to distinguish among trends within this field. These diverse frameworks encourage us to think critically and systematically about intimate and integral connections between our social and biological existence—and, especially in the case of social production of disease and ecosocial theory, to name explicitly who benefits from and is accountable for social inequalities in health.

By focusing attention on under-theorized and under-researched conjoint social and biological determinants of disease distribution, these theories, even in nascent form, can potentially give new grounds for action—and underscore that theory, absent action, is an empty promise.

If not these theories, however, other frameworks will need to be elaborated to enhance social epidemiologists' ability to analyse and provide evidence useful for addressing the myriad ways we both embody and transform the co-mingled social and biological world in which we live, love, work, play, fight, ail and die.

If social epidemiologists are to gain clarity on causes of and barriers to reducing social inequalities in health, adequate theory is a necessity, not a luxury. Who shall create this theory? The task is ours. As sole author of this paper, I have: 1 conceptualized and written the entire paper, from start to finish; 2 checked the references for accuracy and completeness; 3 assumed sole responsibility to vouch for its validity; 4 NO conflict of interest, in that I have not received any financial support from any group who will gain from the publication of the paper; 5 NOT published this material previously in a substantively similar form.

This paper was originally prepared for: Theory and Action: A series of meetings to link research and practice, London, England, 27—29 March Shared observations of disparities in health do not necessarily translate to common understandings of cause; it is for this reason theory is key. To gain clarity on causes of and barriers to reducing social inequalities in health, social epidemiologists will need to generate improved theoretical frameworks and the necessary data to test and refine them.

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