Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

All Outputs (36)

A beginner's guide to crossing the road: towards an epistemology of successful action in complex systems (2024)
Journal Article
van der Merwe, R., & Broadbent, A. (2024). A beginner's guide to crossing the road: towards an epistemology of successful action in complex systems. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, https://doi.org/10.1177/03080188241232777

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 pred... Read More about A beginner's guide to crossing the road: towards an epistemology of successful action in complex systems.

Complexity in Epidemiology and Public Health. Addressing Complex Health Problems Through a Mix of Epidemiologic Methods and Data (2023)
Journal Article
Rod, N. H., Broadbent, A., Rod, M. H., Russo, F., Arah, O. A., & Stronks, K. (2023). Complexity in Epidemiology and Public Health. Addressing Complex Health Problems Through a Mix of Epidemiologic Methods and Data. Epidemiology, 34(4), 505-514. https://doi.org/10.1097/ede.0000000000001612

Public health and the underlying disease processes are complex, often involving the interaction of biologic, social, psychologic, economic, and other processes that may be nonlinear and adaptive and have other features of complex systems. There is th... Read More about Complexity in Epidemiology and Public Health. Addressing Complex Health Problems Through a Mix of Epidemiologic Methods and Data.

Pandemic response strategies and threshold phenomena (2023)
Journal Article
Streicher, P., & Broadbent, A. (2023). Pandemic response strategies and threshold phenomena. Global epidemiology, 5, Article 100105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloepi.2023.100105

This paper critically evaluates the Suppression Threshold Strategy (STS) for controlling Covid-19 (C-19). STS asserts a “fundamental distinction” between suppression and mitigation strategies, reflected in very different outcomes in eventual mortalit... Read More about Pandemic response strategies and threshold phenomena.

Can Robots Do Epidemiology? Machine Learning, Causal Inference, and Predicting the Outcomes of Public Health Interventions (2022)
Journal Article
Broadbent, A., & Grote, T. (2022). Can Robots Do Epidemiology? Machine Learning, Causal Inference, and Predicting the Outcomes of Public Health Interventions. Philosophy & Technology, 35(1), Article 14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-022-00509-3

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 amount... Read More about Can Robots Do Epidemiology? Machine Learning, Causal Inference, and Predicting the Outcomes of Public Health Interventions.