The causation of disease - the practical and ethical consequences of competing explanations.

Räisänen, Ulla and Bekkers, Marie-Jet and Boddington, Paula and Sarangi, Srikant and Clarke, Angus (2006) The causation of disease - the practical and ethical consequences of competing explanations. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 9 (3). pp. 293-306. ISSN 1386-7423

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Abstract

The prevention, treatment and management of disease are closely linked to how the causes of a particular disease are explained. For multi-factorial conditions, the causal explanations are inevitably complex and competing models may exist to explain the same condition. Selecting one particular causal explanation over another will carry practical and ethical consequences that are acutely relevant for health policy. In this paper our focus is two-fold; (i) the different models of causal explanation that are put forward within current scientific literature for the high and rising prevalence of the common complex conditions of coronary artery disease (CAD) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D); and (ii) how these explanations are taken up (or not) within national health policy guidelines. We examine the causal explanations for these two conditions through a systematic database search of current scientific literature. By identifying different causal explanations we propose a three-tier taxonomy of the most prominent models of explanations: (i) evolutionary, (ii) lifecourse, and (iii) lifestyle and environment. We elaborate this taxonomy with a micro-level thematic analysis to illustrate how some explanations are semantically and rhetorically foregrounded over others. We then investigate the uptake of the scientific causal explanations in health policy documents with regard to the prevention and management recommendations of current National Service Frameworks for CAD and T2D. Our findings indicate a lack of congruence between the complexity and frequent overlap of causal explanations evident in the scientific literature and the predominant focus on lifestyle recommendations found in the mainstream health policy documents.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3304
Subjects:
?? causal explanations - common complex disorders - coronary artery disease - ethics - health policy - thematic and textual analysis - type 2 diabeteseducationhealth(social science)health policyb philosophy (general) ??
ID Code:
24082
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
27 Feb 2009 13:31
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
15 Jul 2024 10:21