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Historical Keynote
Addresses
Outgoing IEA President
Addresses Membership on Tasks and Challenges Ahead
Epidemiologists in attendance at
the 12th scientific meeting of the International Epidemiological
Association in Los Angeles had an opportunity at two separate business
meetings to learn about developments within the IEA and the challenges
ahead from outgoing president Walter Holland.
In a talk entitled “The Tasks of
Epidemiology” at the second business meeting, president Holland
described what he considered to be successes and failures in
communicable and chronic disease epidemiology and in health services
research. He then used the lessons learned from these experiences to
identify outstanding tasks for epidemiologists. Included in his list
were:
Tasks
• the need to educate health
professionals about the uses and applications of epidemiology
• the need to accept
epidemiology as an applied science with methods applicable in many
health fields
• the need to become involved in
the control of the problems discovered through our work rather than
merely contemplating how others use our findings
• the need to improve the
quality of our work
• the need to develop priorities
for our work relevant to the local situation rather than based on our
own interests
• the need to develop our
international links and to capitalize on the contrasts in our
experiences
• the need to develop the
multidisciplinary nature of our work and reinforce our links to social
scientists
• the need to accept that our
role and activity is within the context of public health and is
population based
Published September
1990
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