Climate change. Geo-politics. Armed conflicts. Conspiracy theories. And so on. In times like the present it is comforting to have some certainties to hold on to. One encouraging certainty is that there will be a WEON in 2025. WEON 2025 will, as always, offer the opportunity to come together with and get inspired by people who share your passion for epidemiology.
The Department of Clinical Epidemiology of the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) is honored to invite you to WEON 2025 with this year’s theme, the POWER of Clinical Epidemiology. This represents both the strength or impact of epidemiology in driving change and to the methodological rigor needed to produce reliable results.
The power of epidemiology has been recognized at least since Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.). Hippocrates carefully documented and compared the records of diseases in different countries. His notes are still extant; well ordered, objective accounts of observed happenings, interspersed with some theoretical speculations.
In the second century and the next fifteen hundred years, however, epidemiology appeared no longer required. Galen (129-198) introduced a period of just theoretical deductive reasoning, without any epidemiology. According to Galen disease was due to lack of balance in the quality-carrying humors of the body. The four humors which subserved the elementary qualities, the hot, the cold, the moist and the dry. Similarly, the environment of man, the “atmosphere”, had a balance which it might lose. When it did so, an epidemic disease must arrive. This now sounds like pure non-sense. Yet, the acceptance of this theory prevented any important addition to the Hippocratic knowledge of the genesis of epidemics for more than fifteen centuries.1 We now understand that the counterfactual, a world endorsing the power of epidemiology, could have saved many lives.
At the LUMC Department of Clinical Epidemiology we have endorsed the power of clinical epidemiology for 39 years. Indeed, this year our department celebrates its 39th birthday. Thirty-nine years of contributing to improving clinical practice with epidemiology. We are very much looking forward to hearing about your experiences in the various other fields of epidemiology and to share ideas on the current and future power of epidemiology in the broadest sense. Let’s meet in Leiden and talk about the many examples, and future possibilities of the Power of Epidemiology.
Anske van der Bom
Reference: 1. Marjor Greenwood, The medical dictator, Keynes press 1936
