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The Nature of Causality: Beyond Traditional Evidence

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Global Handbook on Noncommunicable Diseases and Health Promotion

Abstract

Regarding NCDs and health promotion there have been some significant conceptual changes in the past quarter century. Two such changes are in the realm of causality and evidence. The basic notion of causality has been infused with the complexity of the real world. The very simple idea that factor “x” causes outcome “y” has come to be regarded as far too simplistic and within the world of chronic disease etiology this is particularly true. Similarly in health promotion the ideology of such fundamental documents as the Ottawa Charter and others argued for a multicausal world (WHO 1986, 2009; WHO EURO 1984, 1998). At the same time that there was growing recognition of the complexity of causality in the medical world there was a powerful movement towards what was termed evidence-based medicine (Sackett et al. 1996). As a result the field of public health, including the NCDs and health promotion, was faced with showing evidence in the face of increasingly complex models of causality. This, in turn, has resulted in an ongoing “evidence debate” (McQueen 2001, 2002, 2003; McQueen and Anderson 2001) that to date remains largely unresolved.

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  1. 2418 Midvale Court, Tucker, GA, 30084, USA

    David V. McQueen

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  1. Emory University, Midvale Court 2418, Atlanta, 30084, Georgia, USA

    David V. McQueen

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McQueen, D.V. (2013). The Nature of Causality: Beyond Traditional Evidence. In: McQueen, D. (eds) Global Handbook on Noncommunicable Diseases and Health Promotion. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7594-1_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7594-1_3

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