Beyond Diversity — Time for New Models of Health

Abstract

Despite the ability to collect and analyze far richer health data than ever before, public health and medical experts have failed to use that information to develop new conceptual models for health. Although data from research inform clinical decision making, many possibilities suggested by health data are lost when we insist on fitting those data into our existing health constructs rather than building new constructs on their basis. The challenge is to ensure that the full range of what we know — from genomics to the social determinants of health for each person — is available, valued, and understood, which may necessitate the development of new models of health and illness. But though the accumulation of new evidence may warrant a paradigm shift, the human tendency is to hold on to our familiar conceptual models even when new data urge us to develop alternative ones