On Monday, 2/2/1439 H, the UQU College of Public Health and Health Informatics held a scientific lecture for faculty members under the title, "Causation in Epidemiological Studies". the lecture was delivered by Prof Dr. Yahya Ahmed Rajaa, the Epidemiology Professor at College of Public Health. Attendance included a number of college vice-deans and deputy heads in addition to several faculty members.
The lecture commenced with Professor Rajaa exploring the concept of causation within epidemiology. He maintained that causation is a complicated phenomenon and that cause is still being debated as a philosophical issue in scientific literature.
Rajaa explained that "cause" and "effect" can be understood through the definition of effect as follows: Something brought about by a cause or agent; a result.
Then he listed a number of patterns and theories on the relationship between cause and agent, including: Epidemiologic Triad, infectious disease model and Rothman's Causal Pies
Rajaa also detailed the 9 Bradford Hill criteria for causation: Strength (size of effect), Consistency, Specificity, Temporality, Biological gradient, Coherence, Experiment, Analogy, and Plausibility.
In conclusion, instructor and attendance discussed a number of topics, including: Strength in comparison to probabilities, other patterns of causation such as spiraling and cyclic patterns. They also discussed the difficulty of identifying causal relationship when it's not measured properly in absence of other factors influencing the result.
