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PubMed2000

Methylmercury and the health of indigenous peoples: a risk management challenge for physical and social sciences and for public health policy.

Methylmercury in aquatic ecosystems and bio-accumulated in aquatic biota, especially fish, is a major public health concern internationally. Precautionary efforts are currently underway internationally to reduce the anthropogenic release of mercury, which in turn, over time, will reduce human exposure. However, at the present time, it is important to address the issue of management of the risks of exposure as they exist now. Of particular concern are the impacts of methylmercury on indigenous populations which depend on fish as a subsistence food source, both in remote areas of developed countries, such as Canada, and in developing countries such as Brazil. Research into these impacts over the past two or three decades has shown that, other than in very severe pollution situations such as occurred in Minamata, Japan, the direct impacts on human health are difficult to prove. On the other hand, the indirect negative effects of methylmercury on health, mediated through the disruption of lifestyle and eating patterns and the associated socio-cultural and socio-economic consequences among the affected native populations, have, in many cases, been significant. These social factors have raised serious challenges in determining practical public health policies on the issue. Policy development relating to environmental contaminants has been presented, with the problem of assessing the role of the various factors which contribute to the impact on health as a result of socio-cultural disruption. These factors include changes in diet and lifestyle due to methylmercury in the environment and its real or perceived risk. The standard physical sciences risk assessment process, based on the lowest observed adverse effects level (LOAEL) or no observed adverse effects level (NOAEL) used in defining health policies may be seen as over-simplistic theoretical extrapolations when viewed in the context of the concerns of the social sciences. Both approaches, however, have relevance to health policies that address the risks posed by environmental methylmercury. Therefore, the standard physical sciences approach of the past three decades now needs to be linked with the social sciences approach, with its focus on the indirect impacts of exposure to methylmercury, to provide a comprehensive approach to public health policy development. With this objective in mind, this paper reviews methylmercury-related data from both physical and social sciences. It attempts to draw on the findings in both disciplines to provide suggestions for an integrated approach in policy development relating to human health and human exposure to methylmercury, especially among indigenous peoples in remote areas and in developing countries. An integrated approach such as this may help to limit adverse health effects in the indigenous communities affected.

Canada↗
PubMed2002

Foundations of "new" social science: institutional legitimacy from philosophy, complexity science, postmodernism, and agent-based modeling.

Since the death of positivism in the 1970s, philosophers have turned their attention to scientific realism, evolutionary epistemology, and the Semantic Conception of Theories. Building on these trends, Campbellian Realism allows social scientists to accept real-world phenomena as criterion variables against which theories may be tested without denying the reality of individual interpretation and social construction. The Semantic Conception reduces the importance of axioms, but reaffirms the role of models and experiments. Philosophers now see models as "autonomous agents" that exert independent influence on the development of a science, in addition to theory and data. The inappropriate molding effects of math models on social behavior modeling are noted. Complexity science offers a "new" normal science epistemology focusing on order creation by self-organizing heterogeneous agents and agent-based models. The more responsible core of postmodernism builds on the idea that agents operate in a constantly changing web of interconnections among other agents. The connectionist agent-based models of complexity science draw on the same conception of social ontology as do postmodernists. These recent developments combine to provide foundations for a "new" social science centered on formal modeling not requiring the mathematical assumptions of agent homogeneity and equilibrium conditions. They give this "new" social science legitimacy in scientific circles that current social science approaches lack.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1992

The potential of transdisciplinary research for sustaining and extending linkages between the health and social sciences.

The last decade of the twentieth century is witnessing a profusion of projects drawing together social and health scientists to study and recommend solutions for a wide range of health problems. The process--practiced in both developed and developing countries--is usually called multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary research. Its historical precedents are briefly reviewed in this paper along with the types of problems addressed. From a review and discussion of a sample of projects selected from two major proponents of this approach to research, the Social and Economic Research Component of the UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases and the Applied Diarrheal Disease Research Project, conclusions are drawn about the nature of contributions from such efforts--very useful for short-term problem solving, less so for longer-term programmatic changes, especially beyond the health sector, and even more limited in impact on theory building for coping with the changing human condition. The recognition of such limitations is now widespread in the social and natural sciences beyond the health sector, in population, ecology, and the humanities. Following these observations, I argue for a new approach to transcend the disciplinary bounds inherent in multi- and interdisciplinary research. A transdisciplinary approach can provide a systematic, comprehensive theoretical framework for the definition and analysis of the social, economic, political, environmental, and institutional factors influencing human health and well-being. The academic and career challenges for such researchers, while considerable, may be overcome since there is now a new flexibility in research-supporting organizations to encourage new ideas in international health, such as that of essential national health research.

Cooperative Behavior↗