1. Multidisciplinary projects as a cross-cultural enterprise
William A. Masters
Friedman School of Nutrition & Department of Economics, Tufts University |
Selected slides from AAEA workshop on multidisciplinary projects
13-14 June 2019

2. Crossing cultures is not easy!

3. Epidemiology & economics: divided by a common language
For example, what is “a grant”?
What is “data”?
And what is “a model”?
In clinical nutrition, a model might look like this:
…and in public health nutrition, the most important models look like this:
The UNICEF framework
(underlying vs proximate causes)
A causal pathways diagram
(left to right, over time)
A social-ecological model
(scale of observation)

4. An individual household A community of farm households
Epidemiology & economics: divided by a common language
One underlying difference is our theory of behavior and societal change
For economists, “models” are one or more equations
In the health sciences, these would probably be called “mechanisms”
An individual household
(here, a “net seller” of nutritious food)
like the Krebs cycle
A community of farm households
(here, they “export” nutritious food)
Qty. of the farm household’s other goods
(kg/yr)
Nutrition:
Diets & behavior
Price of nutritious foods
(pesos/kg)
Agriculture: natural resources and technology
Consumption
Supply
curve
Indifference curve
Production
Price in trade
Production
Consumption
Markets & policy:
Interactions between people
Agriculture: natural resources
and technology
Markets & policy:
Interactions between people
Demand curve
Production possibilities frontier
Nutrition:
Diets & behavior
Price in trade
Qty. of farm household’s nutritious foods (kg/yr)
Qty. of the region’s nutritious foods (tons/yr)

5. Abstracts & presentations
Epi & econ choices differ at every stage of a research project
Some areas of difference in scientific practice:
replication & meta-analysis
project selection & planning
pay & working conditions
standards of evidence
statistical methods
authorship & citation
dissemination
uptake of results
Research design
Project funding
Data collection
Data analysis
Abstracts & presentations
Journal publications
Scientific impact
Societal impact
gov’t. agencies
nonprofit orgs.
companies
individuals
motivation
methods
size & scope
personnel
budgets
activities
new observations
proprietary data
public data
results
hyp. tests
variables
abstracts
posters & slides
working papers
gated (subscriber pays)
open access (author pays)
sponsored (funder pays)
citations
data
methods & code
Outside influences on disciplinary culture:
Funders
Data sources
Collaborators
Scientific community
(media & social)
Editors & referees
Decision-makers
in organizations
Examples of ways that public health differs from applied economics:
Opening paragraph is about the problem,
not the project
Many co-authors, first & last author gets most credit;
Most work is grant-funded, and work is often delegated to post-docs
Most work follows a stylized protocol, e.g. CONSORT and PRISMA
Results often embargoed in pursuit of press coverage
Primary concern is conflicts of interest (e.g. nutrition.org/ensuringtrust)
Also, more and shorter papers,
with more citations
(+ role of pubmed)
Also, increasing focus on transparency and replication, although still less sharing of data and code than in economics
…then methods are spelled out in detail; little focus on novelty
Economists can use aspredicted.org
Nutritionists can use NutriXiv.org

6. Conclusion: Seeing disciplines as cultures can be very helpful
Different cultures arose under different circumstances
Within each culture, people may know little about other cultures
Sub-cultures and counter-cultures are also very important
We don’t yet have guidebooks!
Bridging scientific cultures may be especially difficult
Mastery within any one discipline involves very high-order skills
Science evolves slowly, from one generation to the next
Differences in judgment reflect values as well as expectations
The internet changes everything
Undermining traditional expertise and authorities
Bringing people together on new platforms (e.g. twitter, google scholar, repositories & journals)
Separating people into identity-based information bubbles
Accelerating the need, and opportunity, for interdisciplinary projects!