ABSTRACT
The ultimate aim of epidemiological science is to improve population health by generating information that facilitates evidence-based guidelines and policies. As outlined in the chapters of this textbook, epidemiological research has already linked a number of psychosocial factors to health outcomes, including social networks, job stress, emotions, religious service attendance and personality types. Although researchers have explored the nature of the observed associations by assessing temporal relationships, the strength of the risk factor–disease link, biological plausibility and modifiability, crucially, for most psychosocial risk factors, causality remains elusive and their value as targets for disease prevention remains unclear. In this chapter, we identify opportunities to improve progress in this field. Three suggestions are made: large-scale collaborative research (‘big data’), precision phenotyping and interventional approaches.
