Krieger Nancy
J Epidemiol Community Health. 2015 Aug;69(8):803-4. doi: 10.1136/jech-2014-205027. Epub 2014 Nov 17.
Prompted by my participation in the People's Climate March held in New York City on 21 September 2014, as part of the 'Harvard Divest' contingent, in this brief essay I reflect on the late 20th century development of--and debates over--the necessity of ecological thinking in epidemiology, and also the still limited engagement of our field with work on the health impact of global climate change. Revisiting critiques about the damaging influence of methodological individualism on our field, I extend critique of the still influential notion of 'ecological fallacy,' including its wilful disregard for ecology itself as being pertinent to people's ways of living--and dying. Indeed, the real 'ecological fallacy' is to think epidemiologists or others could ever understand the people's health except in societal and ecological, and hence historical, context. I conclude by urging all of us, as members of the broader scientific community, whether or not we directly study the health impacts of the planetary emergency of global climate change, to step up by joining the call for universities to divest from fossil fuels.
作为“哈佛撤资”队伍的一员，2014年9月21日我参加了在纽约市举行的人民气候游行。受此启发，在这篇短文中，我反思了20世纪后期流行病学中生态思维的发展以及关于其必要性的争论，还有我们这个领域在全球气候变化对健康影响方面的研究仍然有限的情况。回顾关于方法论个人主义对我们领域的破坏性影响的批评，我对仍然有影响力的“生态谬误”概念进行了拓展批判，包括它故意无视生态学本身与人们的生活方式及死亡方式的相关性。事实上，真正的“生态谬误”是认为流行病学家或其他人能够脱离社会和生态背景，也就是历史背景，去理解人们的健康。最后，我敦促我们所有人，作为更广泛科学界的成员，无论我们是否直接研究全球气候变化这一地球紧急情况对健康的影响，都要行动起来，加入呼吁大学撤资化石燃料的行列。
