Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #MethodologicalIndividualism
Most recents (3)
There's a lot in this thread, but one pt I'd like to extract is connected to something I've been arguing for years and #onhere quite a bit recently:
#MethodologicalIndividualism in public health occurs where we position the individual as the unit of change.
1/
#MethodologicalIndividualism in public health occurs where we position the individual as the unit of change.
1/
This is in comparison to structural interventions, which often alter upstream factors and institutions. My favorite example of the latter is laws and policies, but can also include infrastructure and built environmental changes, etc.
2/
2/
But leading public health officials in the US have completely followed the #MethodologicalIndividualism that has dominated public health policy and priorities for much of the 20th c. until now. See:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19965565/
3/
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19965565/
3/
Honestly, the complete takeover of population health policy and approaches by a #medicalized notion of #MethodologicalIndividualism sort of fills me with despair -- not just now, but for the future of public health.
1/
npr.org/sections/healt…
1/
npr.org/sections/healt…
Of all the missteps CDC has made, the doubling-down on approaches that position the individual as the unit of change (#MethodologicalIndividualism and b/c of the source) essentially sanctions it as the dominant mode for public health practice is arguably rock bottom.
2/
2/
It's in the scientific guidance as well. Look at this sentence:
This is of course NOT a Whole Population Approach or even a structural approach to health equity which would require action from those with the power and agency to redress the effects of #StructuralViolence and
3/
This is of course NOT a Whole Population Approach or even a structural approach to health equity which would require action from those with the power and agency to redress the effects of #StructuralViolence and
3/
I've been studying chronic pain for going on 15 years now. I have some thoughts on this, many of which I've articulated elsewhere and for some time now:
1/
The Quiet Scientific Revolution That May Solve Chronic Pain nytimes.com/2021/11/09/wel…
1/
The Quiet Scientific Revolution That May Solve Chronic Pain nytimes.com/2021/11/09/wel…
The headline and the article fundamentally misconstrues the primary causes of the devastating and highly inequitable undertreatment of pain in the US (and globally, but that's another conversation).
2/
2/
The primary causes for our failures in treating people in pain humanely and effectively are not connected to lack of technical, clinical, or scientific knowledge.
3/
3/
