Author Archives: Alex Broadbent

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About Alex Broadbent

Director of the Institute for the Future of Knowledge and Professor of Philosophy, University of Johannesburg

Work in Progress Workshop, Thursday 10 April 2025: Call for expressions of interest

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Expressions of interest are welcome for an online Work in Progress Workshop on Thursday 10 April 2025. This will be online, to support international participation. You may share work for comments or participate without sharing work. Express interest here by 30 Nov 2024: https://forms.gle/VbMbcfShfWgyRd5h9

About the workshop

The idea is to enable philosophers of medicine (broadly construed, as always) to share and get comments on their work in a friendly and supportive environment. This is further to the Centre’s broader mission of supporting interactions and connections in the international philosophy of medicine community, which is dispersed across institutions and continents.

Work can be at any stage of development, and up to the length of one paper/chapter, with the goal of publication in a journal or book. It will be circulated to workshop participants several weeks ahead of the workshop, to allow time for reading. Each participant will be able to use their slot as they wish, but the advisable format is a fairly brief intro to refresh the other participants on the content, and then an open discussion. (If you just give a talk you’ll miss out on feedback.)

If there’s appetite in the PhilMed community, we could have more such events.

What kind of work?

You could share anything you want feedback on, provided the destination is publication in a journal, book (authored or edited), or similar scholarly venue. Some examples might be:

  • A paper you have got half way through and are now stuck with
  • A paper that was rejected from a journal, along with reviewers’ irrational excuses for comments (anonymised if not already anonymous)
  • A paper based on a chapter of your PhD thesis
  • A chapter of a book your writing
  • A chapter you’ve been asked to contribute to a handbook

The main exclusion is work towards a PhD, Masters, or other degree, for which opportunities for feedback exist (or ought to exist!) through your institution. However, work that you are developing from a thesis for publication is fine.

I’m interested in sharing my work. What now?

If you are interested, please express interest by 30 November 2024, using this form: https://forms.gle/VbMbcfShfWgyRd5h9

I’m interested in participating, but may not have work to share. Can I come?

If you are interested in attending but do not want to share work, you can still express an interest – just indicate this on the form. You can still share work if you change your mind, but priority will be given to those who indicated this up front.

What’s the final deadline?

Your will need to share your work by 25 January so we can distribute it by the end of the month, and give everyone ample reading time. (Consider that peer review requests typically allow a couple of months for just one paper, and that reviewers routinely don’t manage to stick to this.)

Queries

For queries, please email alex.broadbent at durham.ac.uk

Hoping to see you there!

Philosophy of Medicine Reading Group, Oct-Dec 24

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This is an open international reading group, hosted by the Centre but open to all, for bringing together people with interests in philosophy of medicine construed broadly to include epidemiology, public health, biomedical science, and so on. If you would like to join, please request membership of the google group and you’ll be able to access the meeting link there: https://groups.google.com/g/philmed-rg/

Each week there will be two online meetings of the group to discuss the same text, one on Wednesday night at 5pm UK time, one on Friday morning at 9 am UK time, in hopes of accommodating group members in a variety of time zones. There is no need to attend all meetings-please come when you can.

  1. Wednesday Oct 16 5pm (Chair: Alex), and Friday Oct 18 9am (Chair: Sarah) to read: Varga 2023, Science, Medicine, and the Aims of Inquiry A Philosophical Analysis. https://www.doi.org/10.1017/9781009449977 Beginning through chapter 2, pages 1-55
  2. Wednesday Oct 23rd 5pm (Alex), Friday Oct 25th 9am (Alex). Varga 2023, Science, Medicine, and the Aims of Inquiry A Philosophical Analysis https://www.doi.org/10.1017/9781009449977 Chapters 3 and 4, pages 56-104
  3. Wednesday Oct 30th 5pm (Elisabetta), Friday Nov 1 9am (Sarah). Varga 2023, Science, Medicine, and the Aims of Inquiry A Philosophical Analysis https://www.doi.org/10.1017/9781009449977 Chapter 5
  4. Wednesday Nov 6 5pm (Elisabetta), Friday Nov 8 9am (Sarah). Varga 2023, Science, Medicine, and the Aims of Inquiry A Philosophical Analysis https://www.doi.org/10.1017/9781009449977 Chapter 6
  5. Wednesday Nov 13 5pm (tbc), Friday Nov 15 9 am (Sarah). Varga 2023, Science, Medicine, and the Aims of Inquiry A Philosophical Analysis https://www.doi.org/10.1017/9781009449977 Chapter 7
  6. Wednesday Nov 20 5pm (Alex), Friday Nov 22 9am (Sarah). Chapter 8 and Conclusion.
  7. Wednesday Nov 27 5pm (Elisabetta), Friday Nov 29 9 am (Sarah). Spencer and Carel 2021, ‘Isn’t Everyone a Little OCD?’ The Epistemic Harms of Wrongful Depathologization https://doi.org/10.5195/pom.2021.19
  8. Wednesday Dec 4 5pm (Alex), Friday Dec 6 9 am (Elisabetta). John 2022, Death Sentences: Criminalization, Medicalization, and the Nature of Disease https://doi.org/10.5195/pom.2022.48
  9. Wednesday Dec 11 5pm (Alex), Friday Dec 13 9 am (Elisabetta). Grote 2023, The Allure of Simplicity, On Interpretable Machine Learning Models in Healthcare https://doi.org/10.5195/pom.2023.139

Any enquiries, please get in touch. And to join, it’s https://groups.google.com/g/philmed-rg/

First Two Meetings of International Philosophy of Medicine Reading Group

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This group – let’s call it Philmed-RG – will have a couple of pilot meetings in July, before settling into a series of meetings in the period September-December, after the Northern summer break is over. (Read more about the group here.)

We have over 130 expressions of interest from all over the world, so we are looking to split the meetings into two, at different sides of the clock. Therefore we propose the following first two meetings and readings.

  1. Fagerberg, H. (2023). What We Argue about when We Argue about Disease. Philosophy of Medicine, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.5195/pom.2023.172
    • Thursday 11 July at 5pm BST
    • Friday 12 July at 9am BST
  2. Stoellger, D. (2023). Why It (Also) Matters What Infectious Disease Epidemiologists Call “Disease”. Philosophy of Medicine, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.5195/pom.2023.149
    • Thursday 25 July at 5pm BST
    • Friday 26 July at 9am BST

The zoom link will be circulated to the reading group email list. You may request to join the list and group here: https://groups.google.com/g/philmed-rg/

We look forward to seeing you at one of these meetings!

The Philmed-RG Organising Committee (Alex Broadbent, Elisabetta Lalumera, Sarah Wieten)

International PhilMed Reading Group

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In various conversations, some of us have thought it might be nice to have a reading group on philosophy of medicine, with international reach. As well as creating a nice place for regular conversations, this might support people who feel a bit isolated where they are, to connect more with the international philosophy of medicine community. And of course it encourages those of us who suffer from “readers block” to read on a regular basis!

We haven’t yet decided what to read, or exactly how often to meet. So we might do a sort of pilot, and continue if it feels good, or drop it otherwise. As a rough guide, we’re imagining having maybe 8 or 10 meetings at intervals of 2 or 3 weeks, each lasting about 90 mins. These might run Sept-Dec (perhaps with some earlier meetings in June/July for those who are free). Then we review, and decide whether to line another series of meetings up for the following year. However, everything is open.

If you would like to be part of this experiment, please would you drop us a line at cpemph@durham.ac.uk? No commitment.

Philosophy of Medicine Roundtable 9-10 May 2024

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Registration is free but required. Register here

Going online for the first time, the latest instalment of the Roundtable brings together over fifty speakers from six continents to present the latest philosophical thinking on topics including:

  • Medicine and artificial intelligence
  • Ageing
  • Nature of health
  • Classification of disease
  • Disability and neurodiversity studies
  • Epistemic injustice in medicine
  • Medical research
  • Epidemiology
  • Population health
  • Social justice in medicine

…and many more.

Keynote speakers

  • Sandro Galea, Robert A. Knox professor and dean at the Boston University School of Public Health
  • Maël Lemoine, Professor of Philosophy and leader of the ImmunoConcept project at Bordeaux University
  • Jerome Wakefield, Professor at NYU Silver as well as an NYU University Professor with multidisciplinary appointments
  • Sarah Wieten, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Durham University

Programme

programme-draft-5Download

Abstracts

book-of-abstracts-1Download

Publications

Selected papers from the conference will be published in a special section of Philosophy of Medicine.

Hosts

The event is hosted by the Centre for Philosophy of Epidemiology, Medicine, and Public Health, a joint enterprise between Durham University’s Institute for Medical Humanities and the University of Johannesburg’s Faculty of Humanities.

About the Roundtable

The International Philosophy of Medicine Roundtable is an open group of philosophers, clinicians, epidemiologists, social scientists, statisticians, bioethicists, and anyone else with an interest in epistemological and ontological issues connected with medicine.

Registration for this conference is free but required. Register here

Paper: ‘Complexity in Epidemiology and Public Health: Addressing complex health problems through a mix of epidemiologic methods and data’

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Delighted to share the online-first publication of this paper in Epidemiology with a number of wonderful co-authors, led by Naja Hulvej Rod. Abstract below.

Complexity in Epidemiology and Public Health: Addressing complex health problems through a mix of epidemiologic methods and data

Public health and the underlying disease processes are complex, often involving the interaction of biologic, social, psychological, economic, and other processes that may be non-linear and adaptive and have other features of complex systems. There is therefore a need to push the boundaries of public health beyond single-factor data analysis and expand the capacity of research methodology to tackle real-world complexities. This paper sets out a way to operationalize complex systems thinking in public health, with particular focus on how epidemiologic methods and data can contribute towards this end. Our proposed framework comprises three core dimensions–patterns, mechanisms, and dynamics–along which complex systems may be conceptualized. These dimensions cover seven key features of complex systems–emergence, interactions, non-linearity, interference, feedback loops, adaptation, and evolution. We relate this framework to examples of methods and data traditionally used in epidemiology. We conclude that systematic production of knowledge on complex health issues may benefit from: formulation of research questions and programs in terms of the core dimensions we identify, as a comprehensive way to capture crucial features of complex systems; integration of traditional epidemiologic methods with systems methodology such as computational simulation modeling; interdisciplinary work; and continued investment in a wide range of data types. We believe that the proposed framework can support systematic production of knowledge on complex health problems, with the use of epidemiology and other disciplines. This will help us understand emergent health phenomena, identify vulnerable population groups, and detect leverage points for promoting public health.

Pandemic response strategies and threshold phenomena

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Delighted to share the publication of “Pandemic response strategies and threshold phenomena”: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590113323000081 by Pieter Streicher and I. Really proud of this one. Abstract below.

This paper critically evaluates the Suppression Threshold Strategy (STS) for controlling Covid-19 (C-19). STS asserts a “fundamental distinction” between suppression and mitigation strategies, reflected in very different outcomes in eventual mortality depending on whether reproductive number R is caused to fall below 1. We show that there is no real distinction based on any value of R which falls in any case from early on in an epidemic wave. We show that actual mortality outcomes lay on a continuum, correlating with suppression levels, but not exhibiting any step changes or threshold effects. We argue that an excessive focus on achieving suppression at all costs, driven by the erroneous notion that suppression is a threshold, led to a lack of information on how to trade off the effects of different specific interventions. This led many countries to continue with inappropriate intervention-packages even after it became clear that their initial goal was not going to be attained. Future pandemic planning must support the design of “Plan B”, which may be quite different from “Plan A”.

Was lockdown racist? Lecture in Princeton Center for Human Values, Boston SPH

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Delighted to be giving a talk called “Was lockdown racist?” at the Princeton Centre for Human Values (2 Nov) and the Boston School of Public Health’s Department of Global Health (7 Nov).

Princeton: 2 Nov @ 4.30pm, Center for Human Values

Boston SPH: 7 Nov @ 1pm, Dept of Global Health

Abstract

In 2016, South African learner Zulaikha Patel argued that a school rule requiring hair to be neat was racist, despite applying equally to pupils of all races. This paper argues that suppression strategies deployed against Covid-19, especially in the early stages of the pandemic, were racist in the same way. The suppression strategy was motivated by science done in traditional seats of colonial power. Local factors shaped (as they normally do) both the methods used and the recommendations arrived at. These did not adequately consider the situation of many people globally living in various contexts of poverty: including on those in Africa. Notwithstanding, the recommendations were promulgated by the World Health Organisation and others, with no regard for local context. Feasibility of implementing “lockdowns” in breadline conditions, effectiveness in overcrowded conditions, local priorities, and the age of the population (in Africa, median 19.7) were not contemplated. Local political and financial interests were aligned with this neglect, and local scientific capacity was in any case lacking. When a regulatory package is implemented in an African country with high costs and low benefits, and originates in a strategy conceived in Europe and promulgated by European-based international organisations, it is impossible to ignore racial dynamics. I show that the trope of “lockdown” as enacted for Covid is a central difference between the responses to Covid and other epidemics in Africa, and I show that one cannot adequately explain this contrast without reference to race. Therefore lockdown was racist.

‘Can you lock down in a slum?’ published in Global Epidemiology

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Delighted that this paper co-authored with Pieter Streicher has now been published in Global Epidemiology.

Broadbent A, Streicher P. Can you lock down in a slum? And who would benefit if you tried? Difficult questions about epidemiology’s commitment to global health inequalities during Covid-19. Global Epidemiology. 2022;4:100074. doi:10.1016/J.GLOEPI.2022.100074 (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590113322000049)

Was lockdown racist?

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Delighted to be giving a new talk this week in Cambridge and Utrecht.

Tuesday 17 May, 2.30pm BST: Cambridge Moral Sciences Club, Newnham College

Friday 20 May, 16.15 CET: Conference, Covid-19 and Public Policy, Utrecht University

Abstract

In 2016, South African learner Zulaikha Patel argued that a school rule requiring hair to be neat was racist. Even though the rule applied equally to everyone, public opinion swung behind Patel: a rule that imposed a disproportionate burden on Black learners could be racist even if it applied equally to all. The school suspended the rule. Basing itself on this case, this paper argues that global lockdowns in the first half of 2020 were racist. The paper focuses on Africa, arguing first that the lockdown strategy of implementing stringent stay-at-home regulations was externally imposed upon Africa, tracing the origins of this policy to the way that modelling results were presented so as to make just one option feasible. The resulting recommendations were promulgated globally by the World Health Organisation, and geopolitical power relations placed huge pressures on African states to comply. Next, the paper argues that locking down placed a disproportionate burden on Africa, whose population is the poorest in the world and for whom no work often means no food. At the same time, the potential benefit of the policy was small. With a median age of 19.7, much of the population was just too young for Covid ever to be a serious public health problem, and by the same token other threats to life compete for attention. Slum-dwellers cannot reduce their social contact by 75%, which is the figure used in the model upon which the recommendations were based. Most states in the region are unable to afford or implement meaningful food or grant schemes to compensate. Many African countries have no ventilators and low access to health care, so protecting the healthcare system was not a meaningful goal. And the strategy of locking down until a vaccine was available could never have been credible in a region where millions of children die annually from diseases treatable by penicillin. Where a policy originates in Europe and has disproportionate negative effect in Africa, it is impossible to ignore racial dynamics. “Black” is a colonial vestige that does not do justice to the ethnic diversity in Africa. Yet it can be legitimately used as Patel used it: for purpose of internal critique, and as an adjunct identity that does not negate other identities. Lockdown had a disproportionate negative effect on a very large number of Black people, and it was externally imposed. Therefore lockdown was racist.