Three Views on the Track Record of Epidemiology
• View 1: Alfredo Morabia
Professor of Epidemiology, Center for the Biology of Natural Systems, City University of New York, New York, NY, United States

Epidemiology Track Record: Summa Sine Laude

Epidemiology has developed the quantitative methods and concepts needed to address health-related questions which cannot be properly evaluated in a laboratory, but require population thinking and group comparisons. Its contribution to medicine and public health can be clearly specified, and is substantial. Epidemiology has contributed decisive evidence, establishing new and important health-related knowledge, such as the health effects of tobacco exposure. Nonetheless, no epidemiologist has been awarded the most prestigious prize in science, that is, the Nobel Memorial Prize. In that sense, epidemiology remains sine summa laude (without the highest praise). In contrast, cliometry, that is, quantitative economic history, which has a similar relationship with economics as epidemiology has with medicine, was awarded a Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. The question of why cliometry received this award but epidemiology did not is, of course, complex to answer. However, trying to answer it forces us into a position as external observers of the track record of our discipline and to understand how it is perceived by society.

Alfredo Morabia has an MD from Geneva, Switzerland and a PhD in Epidemiology from Johns Hopkins. Between 1990 and 2005 he was director of Clinical Epidemiology at the University Hospital of Geneva. He is currently Professor of Epidemiology at City University of New York and adjunct Clinical Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University. He is Chief-Editor of Preventive Medicine and an Editor of the James Lind Library (www.jameslindlibrary.org) Besides his research in cancer, genetic, surveillance and environmental epidemiology, he has studied for the last 10 years the history of epidemiologic methods and concepts.