Alex Broadbent
Biographic Data
| ID | 461773 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alex Broadbent |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alex |
| FAMILY NAME | Broadbent |
| SIGNATURE | BROADBENT A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Johannesburg |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5120-6584 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 28 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Medicine
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Medicine is a guide to areas of current activity and change, not only in philosophy of medicine but also in medical science and practice. This volume reflects a renewed awareness that medical traditions are culturally diverse and of the philosophical opportunities this creates. It presents important new work on the nature of medicine, its demarcation from rivals, and the legitimacy of its claims to superiority…
Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Medicine
Was Lockdown Racist
This paper argues that lockdown was racist, where “lockdown” refers to a historically situated kind of regulatory response to the Covid-19 pandemic imposing significant restrictions on leaving the home and on activities outside it. We articulate a notion of negligent racism which is objective and does not require intent, and show that lockdown satisfies its definition. The effects of lockdown on Africa significantly disadvantaged its inhabitants …
A beginner's guide to crossing the road
Crossing the road within the traffic system is an example of an action human agents perform successfully day-to-day in complex systems. How do they perform such successful actions given that the behaviour of complex systems is often difficult to predict? The contemporary literature contains two contrasting approaches to the epistemology of complex systems: an analytic and a post-modern approach. We argue that neither adequately accounts for how s…
Can Robots Do Epidemiology? Machine Learning, Causal Inference, and Predicting the Outcomes of Public Health Interventions
This paper argues that machine learning (ML) and epidemiology are on collision course over causation. The discipline of epidemiology lays great emphasis on causation, while ML research does not. Some epidemiologists have proposed imposing what amounts to a causal constraint on ML in epidemiology, requiring it either to engage in causal inference or restrict itself to mere projection. We whittle down the issues to the question of whether causal kn…
Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Public Health
The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Public Health
In comparison to medicine, the professional field of public health is far less familiar. What is public health, and perhaps as importantly, what should public health be or become? How do causal concepts shape the public health agenda? How do study designs either promote or demote the environmental causal factors or health inequalities? How is risk understood, expressed, and communicated? Who is public health research centered on? How can we devel…
The C-word, the P-word, and realism in epidemiology
This paper considers an important recent (May 2018) contribution by Miguel Hernán to the ongoing debate about causal inference in epidemiology. Hernán rejects the idea that there is an in-principle epistemic distinction between the results of randomized controlled trials and observational studies: both produce associations which we may be more or less confident interpreting as causal. However, Hernán maintains that trials have a semantic advantag…
Health as a Secondary Property
In the literature on health, naturalism and normativism are typically characterized as espousing and rejecting, respectively, the view that health is objective and value-free. This article points out that there are two distinct dimensions of disagreement, regarding objectivity and value-ladenness, and thus arranges naturalism and normativism as diagonal opposites on a two-by-two matrix of possible positions. One of the remaining quadrants is occu…
Philosophy for Graduate Students
When graduate students start their studies, they usually have sound knowledge of some areas of philosophy, but the overall map of their knowledge is often patchy and disjointed. There are a number of topics that any contemporary philosopher working in any part of the analytic tradition (and in many parts of other traditions too) needs to grasp, and to grasp as a coherent whole rather than a rag-bag of interesting but isolated discussions. This bo…
Tobacco and epidemiology in Korea
The National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) of Korea provides health insurance for over 90% of the population. The prevalence of smoking among Korean men is one of the highest in developed countries, and cancer incidence and mortality rates are the highest among all Asian countries.1 The NHIS has taken legal action against Korean and international tobacco companies and recently suffered a blow at the Supreme Court.2 This has attracted comment in…
Philosophy for Graduate Students
Prediction in epidemiology and medicine
Causation and prediction in epidemiology
Risk relativism and physical law
In two 1959 papers, one coauthored, Jerome Cornfield asserts that ‘relative’ measures are more useful for causal inference while ‘absolute’ measures are more useful for public health purposes. In one of these papers (the single-authored one), he asks how epidemiology should respond to the fact that its domain is not a highly ‘articulated’ one—it is not susceptible to being subsumed under general laws. What is the connection between these issues? …
Disease as a theoretical concept
Philosophy of Epidemiology
Epidemiology is one of the fastest growing and increasingly important sciences. This thorough analysis lays out the conceptual foundations of epidemiology, identifying traps and setting out the benefi
Defining neglected disease
Causation and models of disease in epidemiology
Causation and models of disease in epidemiology
Health as a Secondary Property
In the literature on health, naturalism and normativism are typically characterized as espousing and rejecting, respectively, the view that health is objective and value-free. This article points out that there are two distinct dimensions of disagreement, regarding objectivity and value-ladenness, and thus arranges naturalism and normativism as diagonal opposites on a two-by-two matrix of possible positions. One of the remaining quadrants is occu…
Causation and prediction in epidemiology
Disease as a theoretical concept
Risk relativism and physical law
In two 1959 papers, one coauthored, Jerome Cornfield asserts that ‘relative’ measures are more useful for causal inference while ‘absolute’ measures are more useful for public health purposes. In one of these papers (the single-authored one), he asks how epidemiology should respond to the fact that its domain is not a highly ‘articulated’ one—it is not susceptible to being subsumed under general laws. What is the connection between these issues? …
Causation and models of disease in epidemiology
Defining neglected disease
Philosophy of Epidemiology
Epidemiology is one of the fastest growing and increasingly important sciences. This thorough analysis lays out the conceptual foundations of epidemiology, identifying traps and setting out the benefi
Disease as a theoretical concept
Prediction in epidemiology and medicine
Causation and prediction in epidemiology
Risk relativism and physical law
In two 1959 papers, one coauthored, Jerome Cornfield asserts that ‘relative’ measures are more useful for causal inference while ‘absolute’ measures are more useful for public health purposes. In one of these papers (the single-authored one), he asks how epidemiology should respond to the fact that its domain is not a highly ‘articulated’ one—it is not susceptible to being subsumed under general laws. What is the connection between these issues? …
Philosophy for Graduate Students
When graduate students start their studies, they usually have sound knowledge of some areas of philosophy, but the overall map of their knowledge is often patchy and disjointed. There are a number of topics that any contemporary philosopher working in any part of the analytic tradition (and in many parts of other traditions too) needs to grasp, and to grasp as a coherent whole rather than a rag-bag of interesting but isolated discussions. This bo…
Tobacco and epidemiology in Korea
The National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) of Korea provides health insurance for over 90% of the population. The prevalence of smoking among Korean men is one of the highest in developed countries, and cancer incidence and mortality rates are the highest among all Asian countries.1 The NHIS has taken legal action against Korean and international tobacco companies and recently suffered a blow at the Supreme Court.2 This has attracted comment in…
Philosophy for Graduate Students
Health as a Secondary Property
In the literature on health, naturalism and normativism are typically characterized as espousing and rejecting, respectively, the view that health is objective and value-free. This article points out that there are two distinct dimensions of disagreement, regarding objectivity and value-ladenness, and thus arranges naturalism and normativism as diagonal opposites on a two-by-two matrix of possible positions. One of the remaining quadrants is occu…
The C-word, the P-word, and realism in epidemiology
This paper considers an important recent (May 2018) contribution by Miguel Hernán to the ongoing debate about causal inference in epidemiology. Hernán rejects the idea that there is an in-principle epistemic distinction between the results of randomized controlled trials and observational studies: both produce associations which we may be more or less confident interpreting as causal. However, Hernán maintains that trials have a semantic advantag…
Can Robots Do Epidemiology? Machine Learning, Causal Inference, and Predicting the Outcomes of Public Health Interventions
This paper argues that machine learning (ML) and epidemiology are on collision course over causation. The discipline of epidemiology lays great emphasis on causation, while ML research does not. Some epidemiologists have proposed imposing what amounts to a causal constraint on ML in epidemiology, requiring it either to engage in causal inference or restrict itself to mere projection. We whittle down the issues to the question of whether causal kn…
Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Public Health
The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Public Health
In comparison to medicine, the professional field of public health is far less familiar. What is public health, and perhaps as importantly, what should public health be or become? How do causal concepts shape the public health agenda? How do study designs either promote or demote the environmental causal factors or health inequalities? How is risk understood, expressed, and communicated? Who is public health research centered on? How can we devel…
A beginner's guide to crossing the road
Crossing the road within the traffic system is an example of an action human agents perform successfully day-to-day in complex systems. How do they perform such successful actions given that the behaviour of complex systems is often difficult to predict? The contemporary literature contains two contrasting approaches to the epistemology of complex systems: an analytic and a post-modern approach. We argue that neither adequately accounts for how s…
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Medicine
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Medicine is a guide to areas of current activity and change, not only in philosophy of medicine but also in medical science and practice. This volume reflects a renewed awareness that medical traditions are culturally diverse and of the philosophical opportunities this creates. It presents important new work on the nature of medicine, its demarcation from rivals, and the legitimacy of its claims to superiority…
Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Medicine
Was Lockdown Racist
This paper argues that lockdown was racist, where “lockdown” refers to a historically situated kind of regulatory response to the Covid-19 pandemic imposing significant restrictions on leaving the home and on activities outside it. We articulate a notion of negligent racism which is objective and does not require intent, and show that lockdown satisfies its definition. The effects of lockdown on Africa significantly disadvantaged its inhabitants …
Epistemology (11 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Medicine (9 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Epidemiology (6 works) · Pathology (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Public health (4 works)