Define Web of Causation
The web of causation is primarily a medical term used to represent the complex group of subjects and relationships that can contribute to the occurrence and spread of a disease.
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Identification
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The web of causation is a key term in epidemiology, the study of the distribution of health outcomes in a given population. The web model shows that diseases are not distributed randomly in any group, but that isolating how they are distributed requires the study of many factors.
History
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The term "web of causation" first appeared in a U.S. epidemiology textbook in 1960.
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Considerations
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It is important to distinguish association from causation. Just because a symptom is associated with a certain population or event does not mean that event or group is the cause of the symptom.
Warning
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The web of causation implies there is in fact no single cause of any symptom or disease: they all stem from multiple inciting factors. Even seemingly obvious causal connections should be considered tentative.
Fun Fact
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The "web of causation" model has been popularly applied to other complex systems, including the Internet and the world economy.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of Steve Jurvetson
