Society is an emergent phenomenon that arises from the actions of billions of people, each of whom is an assemblage of billions of neurons and other cells, including many more microorganisms than human cells. The thinking and behavior of individuals and groups reflects this biology and the environmental influences, as these have developed through evolutionary time. Organisms compete and cooperate, as they seek to survive, reproduce, and grow. People have developed abilities to reason, strategize, forecast, theorize, simulate, deceive, etc. and in the process gained enormous power to understand and alter the environment and ourselves. But the world is so complex that even as we gain deep understanding we are also always oversimplifying.
We generally seek to advance our own interests, and existing health disparities reflect the resulting competition, amplified by accumulated differences in resources and power, but because of complexity, inequities can also be fostered unintentionally. After all, every action has multiple effects that may vary across time (immediate, intermediate-term, long-term, eventual), affected individuals (ourselves, our families, our friends, our associates, neighbors, other people in our vicinity, other people at a distance), and arenas (home, school, work, community, professional associations, etc.). Our ability to identify the best action is therefore limited by lack of knowledge and information and myriad influences. We adopt various rubrics (laws, moral principles, religious prescriptions and proscriptions, common sense, what our parents taught us, what our peers do, habit, etc.) and heuristics in order to function. We can probably identify actions that are clearly suboptimal (e.g., they have immediately visible negative consequences with no evident offsetting benefits), but otherwise we rely on diversity of perspectives, the “marketplace of ideas”, and the forces of evolution to shape our individual and institutional practices. Nevertheless, we can apply the practices that have increased our abilities to understand and alter the environment in our attempt to improve the functioning of society.
The aims of the workshop are for participants to explore the following questions:
How can epidemiology help us to understand societal dynamics better and to improve their functioning, so that we can eliminate health disparities and promote better public health in the near term and longer term? As a species, humans have enormous wealth and capabilities. Yet, we waste large fractions of these on conflict and distractions while at the same time promoting environmental degradation and suffering for many. What leads people, particularly those with wealth and power, to follow a narrow interpretation of their self interest, taking actions that harm others when other choices can be made? What leads them to willfully disregard harm and to promote disinformation when that is not necessary for their own survival and reproduction? Can such behavior be precisely characterized and measured? Can its determinants be identified? Can we modify those determinants through disseminating and implementing epidemiologic findings?