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Abstract
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Epidemiology is concerned with the study of the occurrence of diseases in human populations, that is, in groups rather than separate individuals. Epidemiologists look for disease patterns in populations -- communities, regions or nations.
Epidemiologists distinguish between the host (the person who has the disease), the agent (the cause of the disease) and the environment (such as social and climatic conditions). For suicidal behavior, the host is the suicidal person, and the environment constitutes the social milieu in which the suicidal people find themselves. The agent, however, is not quite so simple as in some medical diseases where there are bacteria or viruses known to cause the disease. For suicidal behavior, the "causes" are not well understood.
However, Friedman (1987) noted that all persons, for example, infected with the beta- hemolytic streptococcus do not develop the disease it causes, rheumatic fever. Some hosts are more susceptible to the disease than others. This finds an analogy in suicidal behavior where it is known that factors such as a major depressive disorder or experience of suicidal behavior in family members and peers may increase the probability of suicidal behavior in some individuals. It may be possible to view such factors as agents to which not all hosts are susceptible.
Diseases are not easy to define. Some disease names merely describe the appearance of a person (externally or internally, such as colitis) or a subjective sensation (such as headache). However, some disease names do imply a causal element (such as pneumococcal pneumonia). Typically, with increasing knowledge, disease names move from description to causation. As regards suicidal behavior, suicidologists are still working at the descriptive phase, with a great deal of effort currently being put into devising a set of descriptive terms which all suicidologists can accept and work with (e.g., Canetto and Lester, 1995; O'Carroll, et al., 1995)...
Language: en |