The Epidemiologist as Environmentalist

Abstract

Research based on an holistic concept of the relations between environment and health holds great promise for disease control, but is sharply constrained by the limitations of existing methods. Analytic techniques currently in vogue imply very different models, and even the more sophisticated one reflects an adherence to fairly traditional views of disease causation. These views seem entirely appropriate for therapeutic approaches, and, by extension, to preventive measures such as immunization. However, to understand and exploit effectively the environmental factors that influence disease, different models and methods are needed, perhaps based on the notion that a multitude of variables form interconnected constellations in n–space. Further developments along these lines are dependent upon appropriate statistical procedures and better means of data reduction.