What is it about?
The focus on proximal risk factors for non-communicable diseases means that policy makers consistently attend to trying to get people to change their behaviour. However knowing about cause and risk does not tell you how to conge policies to protect people from risks. So knowing that alcohol is a cause of liver disease does not tell you how to help people cut down the amount they drink. Likewise knowing that consuming more calories than is needed for energy expenditure doesn't help to change the ways people, shop, cook and eat.
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Why is it important?
If progress is to be made in reducing the burden of non-communicable diseases world wide then a very different approach to policy is required. This is explained in the paper.
Perspectives
The paper draws on historical and sociological data to explain how to construct policy questions differently.
Michael Kelly
University of Cambridge
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Causal narratives in public health: the difference between mechanisms of aetiology and mechanisms of prevention in non-communicable diseases, Sociology of Health & Illness, October 2017, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9566.12621.
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