Trans-World Causation Revisited

Epidemiologists and causation in an intricate world

The development and reaffirmation of epidemiology as a scientific discipline has been closely associated with its ability to search for causes of health-related events. Causal reasoning was always part of human thinking and of philosophical concerns. However, the first to transform philosophical causal concerns in an organized logical system from which causal relationships could be inferred was...

A trans world journey.

A high intake of industrially produced trans fatty acids (IP-TFA) is associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), and a daily intake as low as possible is required to minimize health risks. To achieve this at the individual level in Denmark, legislation limited IP-TFA in foods to a maximum of 2% of fat content from 2004. We assessed the potential exposure of consumers to IP-T...

Immigration and schizophrenia: the social causation hypothesis revisited.

Social factors and health: the causation-selection issue revisited.

Since social scientists rarely have access to experimental data, they rely heavily upon observational studies. As a consequence, their attempts to make causal inferences about the effects of social factors--such as occupation or marital status--on health are plagued by potential selection problems. Some researchers have addressed this selection-causation problem on the basis of the presence or ...

Causation and Disease: The Henle-Koch Postulates Revisited 1

The Henle-Koch postulates are reviewed in terms of their full validity in Koch's day and in light of subsequent developments. The changing guidelines developed for viral diseases, for viruses in relation to cancer and to chronic central nervous system infection, and for causative agents in chronic diseases are discussed chronologically. A set of guidelines for both acute infectious and chronic ...