Introduction:
Socialist Epidemiology
Socialist epidemiology refers to the application of socialist principles and ideologies to the field of epidemiology, which in turn is tasked with the study of the distribution and determinants of health-related events and conditions in society. While it remains an open question if socialist epidemiology has indeed ever existed as distinct scientific practice, it has been widely presumed to constitute an ideologically shaped enterprise to advance politics in the name of a science for public health. This project will be the first to reconstruct the history of socialist epidemiology, bringing together a range of interdisciplinary experts for a workshop and to establish a research network that joins questions about the legacy of socialist global health with the sprawling history of epidemiology between science and politics.
Recent scholarship has drawn attention to a hidden, parallel history of socialist global health, socialist statistics and the socialist influences in the political framing of transnational institutions for international and global health (Ghosh 2020, Ling 2022, Vargha 2023). At the same time, a new historiography of epidemiology has raised questions about the scientific status of the field, its boundaries and the contested status of expertise, particularly when leading policy in epidemic crises. (Engelmann 2020, Rhodes and Lancaster 2022) This network and the workshop will bring these concerns together to ask:
- What has socialist epidemiology been, and how might this history inform our understanding of contested epidemiological expertise in past and present?
- How can we utilise the history of socialist epidemiology to deconstruct and revise the relationship of science and policy in epidemiology and public health?
With a workshop at the Brocher Fondation and in collaboration with the WHO, this network will bring together two existing research groups to utilise the question of a socialist epidemiology as a new starting point to develop a set of wider reflections on the intersection of politics and science in the consideration of disease in population in the past, in the still-ongoing Covid-19 epidemic and towards better epidemic preparedness. Further, this network will explore the contested history of socialist epidemiology to develop a wider understanding of political distinction in epidemiological practice today, contesting the established boundaries between social and formal epidemiology, and narrative and quantitative forms of analysis. Finally, this network will lead to a new international and transdisciplinary working group to bridge the gap between the historical and contemporary analysis of social medicine and of epidemiology, further contributing to setting common and consensual expertise for public health on solid epistemological grounds.