Capacitatea cognitivă, sănătatea şi politicile ştiinţei

Improvements in life expectancy are associated with the education level of the population. Both kinds of in-
dicators are also associated with socio-economic status. However, an independent, direct effect of education
status on health status can also be documented. Some issues that may explain this relationship are the ability
to recognise disease as an objective process that can be influenced through practical measures and the ability
to operationalise the probabilistic notion of risk and its implications. Physician performance is related to the
ability to follow probabilistic logic and statistical arguments, as most scientific results on which clinical practice
is based are probabilistic. We review a range of widespread errors of judgement regarding the objective nature
of organic diseases, the principles of pharmacologic effect and the ability to monitor its effects, atitudes towards
medical errors, common (mis)perceptions of causality among health professionals and the general population,
and issues in the comprehension and application of published research results. Probabilistic logic and scientific
education in general need to be improved at all levels, and in particular in medical training and research, in order
to achieve a further improvement of the general health status and life expectation. Research fields and thematics
that need to be encouraged include cultural anthropology studies about the concept of disease and treatment,
the study of medication errors, of the logic of clinical arguments and their perception in the patient population,
as well as interdisciplinary approaches aiming to improve probabilistic models of disease and treatment such as
pharmacometry, epidemiologic modelling or systems biology.