Historical Evolution of Epidemiology

Disease prevention and health promotion are the main goals of public health, a multidisciplinary field that focuses on populations and communities rather than separate individuals. Epidemiology, one of the basic sciences of public health, is defined as “the study of the distribution and determinants of disease frequency in human populations and the application of this study to control health problems.” Epidemiology has played an important role in public health achievements of the last 400 years. Key historical figures and studies have included 

1. HIPPOCRATES (400 BC): “On Airs, Waters, and Places” –Hypothesized that disease might be associated with the physical environment, including seasonal variation in illness.
2. John Graunt (1662): He was first to employ quantitative methods which described population vital statistics. “Nature and Political Observations Made Upon the Bills of Mortality” –
3. James Lind discovered the cause and prevention of scurvy using an experimental study design in the 18th century;
4. William Farr(1839): He originated many modern epidemiologic methods which included a combination of numerator and denominator data;
5. John Snow (1849-1854): He demonstrated that contaminated drinking water. It was the mode of cholera transmission in the 19th century;
6. Members of the Streptomycin in Tuberculosis Trials Committee, who conducted one of the first modern controlled clinical trials in the 1940s;
7. Doll and Hill conducted case-control studies on smoking and lung cancer in the 1950s;
8. Frances et al. (1950) performed formal field trial of the Poliomyelitis vaccine in school children;
9. Dawber et al. (1955) used the cohort design to study risk factors for cardiovascular disease in the Framingham Heart Study;
10. Finally, during the 1960s and early 1970s application of epidemiological methods/interventions got succession in the eradication of smallpox worldwide in 1977.

In recent years the field of epidemiology has greatly expanded in scope, size, and influence. The 21st century poses even more challenging problems for epidemiologists like non-communicable diseases, mental health diseases, aging issues, disaster management, etc.. Like past public health achievements, the solutions to these problems are being studied with the huge contributions of epidemiology in the context of public health action.

Reference: 

Essentials of Epidemiology in Public Health by Ann Aschengrau, George R. Seage