Salt And Public Health: Contested Science And The Challenge Of Evidence-Based Decision Making
Salt And Public Health: Contested Science And The Challenge Of Evidence-Based Decision Making
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DOI：
10.1377/hlthaff.2012.0554
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发表时间：
2012-12-01
期刊：
影响因子：
9.7
通讯作者：
Galea, Sandro
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bayer, Ronald;Johns, David Merritt;Galea, Sandro
从20世纪60年代末开始的40多年来，科学家们就盐摄入量增加对人口健康的不利影响以及导致中风和心血管疾病死亡的程度进行了激烈的争论。各种研究和试验产生了相互矛盾的结果。尽管关于饮食中的盐与疾病有关的证据的质量存在科学争议，但地方，国家和国际层面的公共卫生领导人已经在人口水平上提出了减少盐的理由。本文探讨了这一争议的发展。它的结论是，在这种情况下隐瞒科学的不确定性是一个错误，既不符合科学的目的，也不符合良好的政策。本文提出了从这场辩论中产生的问题，并提出了制定以证据为基础的公共卫生实践和政策的挑战，特别是当证据有争议时。
For more than four decades, starting in the late 1960s, a sometimes furious battle has raged among scientists over the extent to which elevated salt consumption has adverse implications for population health and contributes to deaths from stroke and cardiovascular disease. Various studies and trials have produced conflicting results. Despite this scientific controversy over the quality of the evidence implicating dietary salt in disease, public health leaders at local, national, and international levels have pressed the case for salt reduction at the population level. This article explores the development of this controversy. It concludes that the concealment of scientific uncertainty in this case has been a mistake that has served neither the ends of science nor good policy. The article poses questions that arise from this debate and frames the challenges of formulating evidence-based public health practice and policy, particularly when the evidence is contested.