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L R Karhausen

Publications and source records attributed to L R Karhausen.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2000

Causation: the elusive grail of epidemiology.

The paper discusses the evolving concept of causation in epidemiology and its potential interaction with logic and scientific philosophy. Causes are contingent but the necessity which binds them to their effects relies on contrary-to-fact conditionals, i.e. conditional statements whose antecedent is false. Chance instead of determinism plays a growing role in science and, although rarely acknowledged yet, in epidemiology: causes are multiple and chancy; a prior event causes a subsequent event if the probability distribution of the subsequent event changes conditionally upon the probability of the prior event. There are no known sufficient causes in epidemiology. We merely observe tendencies toward sufficiency or tendencies toward necessity: cohort studies evaluate the first tendencies, and case-control studies the latter. In applied sciences, such as medicine and epidemiology, causes are intrinsically connected with goals and effective strategies: they are recipe which have a potential harmful or successful use; they are contrastive since they make a difference between circumstances in which they are present and those in which they are absent: causes do not explain event E but event E rather than even F. Causation is intrinsically linked with the notion of "what is pathological". Any definition of causation will inevitably collapse into the use made of epidemiologic methods. The progressive methodological sophistication of the last forty years is in perfect alignment with a gradual implicit overhaul of our concept of causation.

Causality↗
PubMed1996

The logic of causation in epidemiology.

The paper attempts to model causality with logical conditionals by way of conditional probability. This provides a broad conceptualisation of causality according to which we merely observe tendencies toward sufficiency or tendencies toward necessity. Cohort studies evaluate the first tendencies, and case-control studies the latter. This conceptual approach also clarifies the logic of what unifies the two methods. Ways to measure causal tendencies are proposed. Some of the consequences of this conceptual analysis are discussed and among them, the growing role of chance instead of determinism in science and, although rarely acknowledged yet, in epidemiology.

Case-Control Studies↗