In Reassessing the Role of Epidemiology in Public Health, Savitz, Poole, and Miller (1999) assert the following: “…public health draws on epidemiology.. however certain definitions confuse the relationship between public health and epidemiology” (p. 1158). One of the main ideas the authors wanted to deliver is that “epidemiological studies cannot prove causation, either generally or in a specific case” (Braithwaite , 1999, p. 16). Epidemiology can just show the connections between the risk factors and disease but the causation is not in its competency.
One of the most important roles epidemiological studies play is the assessment of the health risks. Conducting research, epidemiology studies do not rely on laboratory knowledge. Much attention is paid to population and the real conditions they live in. Moreover, “epidemiology has often contributed to the recognition of new hazards, thereby stimulating new research and identifying new areas for public health action” (Evaluation and use of epidemiological evidence , 2000, p. 1).
Furthermore, decision-making based on the epidemiological studies helps create policies. Policies must be created on the basis of the observational data and epidemiological studies are the main sources of such information (Szklo, 2001). Policy-making is a complicated process, which requires validity of the studies. However, there are cases when data received from epidemiological studies cannot be used due to its dubiousness. There are cases when epidemiological data is inadequate for being used as the basis for the regulation, but the absence of another source of information and points of the validation of the epidemiological findings may serve as the basic data (Rodricks, Collins, Farland, & Tollerud, 2001).
Therefore, it can be concluded that the main idea of epidemiology is to consider the problem, evaluate its distribution, assess its effect on population in real conditions, and use the obtained data for controlling the situation and decision-making. Epidemiology does not offer evidence for drawing conclusions about causation of the disease, it just points to the scope and consequences.
References
Braithwaite, W., et al. (1999). The role of epidemiology in decision-making. The Annapolis Center. Web.
Evaluation and use of epidemiological evidence for environmental health risk assessment. (2000). World Health Organization. Web.
Rodricks, J.V., Collins, J.J., Farland, W.H. & Tollerud, D.J. (2001). Contrasting roles of epidemiology in dioxin-related policy: Lessons learned. American Journal of Epidemiology, 154(12), S43-S49.
Savitz, D., Poole, C., & Miller, W. (1999). Reassessing the role of epidemiology in public health. American Journal of Public Health, 89(8), 1158-1161.
Szklo, M. (2001). The evaluation of epidemiologic evidence for policy-making. American Journal of Epidemiology, 154(12), S13-S17.