The Theory of Epidemiologic Transition: the Origins of a Citation Classic
Autor: | Jesse Olszynko-Gryn, George Weisz |
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Rok vydání: | 2009 |
Předmět: |
Gerontology
History medicine.medical_specialty Epidemiology media_common.quotation_subject Population Demographic transition World Health Organization Modernization theory Islam Population control Birth control medicine Humans Social Change Positive economics education media_common education.field_of_study business.industry Public health International health History 20th Century United States Epidemiological transition Family Planning Services Chronic Disease Egypt Population Control Public Health Geriatrics and Gerontology business |
Zdroj: | Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. 65:287-326 |
ISSN: | 1468-4373 0022-5045 |
Popis: | In 1971 Abdel R. Omran published his classic paper on the theory of epidemiologic transition. By the mid-1990s, it had become something of a citation classic and was understood as a theoretical statement about the shift from infectious to chronic diseases that supposedly accompanies modernization. However, Omran himself was not directly concerned with the rise of chronic disease; his theory was in fact closely tied to efforts to accelerate fertility decline through health-oriented population control programs. This article uses Omran's extensive published writings as well as primary and secondary sources on population and family planning to place Omran's career in context and reinterpret his theory. We find that "epidemiologic transition" was part of a broader effort to reorient American and international health institutions towards the pervasive population control agenda of the 1960s and 1970s. The theory was integral to the WHO's then controversial efforts to align family planning with health services, as well as to Omran's unsuccessful attempt to create a new sub-discipline of "population epidemiology." However, Omran's theory failed to displace demographic transition theory as the guiding framework for population control. It was mostly overlooked until the early 1990s, when it belatedly became associated with the rise of chronic disease. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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