Multidisciplinary projects as a cross-cultural enterprise

1. William A. Masters Friedman School of Nutrition & Department of Economics, Tufts University http://sites.tufts.edu/willmasters | http://sites.tufts.edu/foodecon Multidisciplinary projects as a cross-cultural enterprise 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: A causal pathways diagram (left to right, over time) The UNICEF framework (underlying vs proximate causes) A social-ecological model (scale of observation)

4. 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” like the Krebs cycle An individual household (here, a “net seller” of nutritious food) A community of farm households (here, they “export” nutritious food) Price of nutritious foods (pesos/kg) Qty. of the farm household’s other goods (kg/yr) Nutrition: Diets & behavior Agriculture: natural resources and technology Consumption Supply curve Indifference curve Production Price in trade Production Consumption Markets & policy: Interactions between people Markets & policy: Interactions between people Agriculture: natural resources and technology 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. Epi & econ choices differ at every stage of a research project Some areas of difference in scientific practice: replication & meta-analysis statistical methods project selection & planning authorship & citation standards of evidence pay & working conditions dissemination uptake of results Data analysis Journal publications Research design Data collection Abstracts & presentations Societal impact Project funding Scientific impact • gov’t. agencies • nonprofit orgs. • companies • individuals • results • hyp. tests • variables • abstracts • posters & slides • working papers • citations • data • methods & code • motivation • methods • size & scope • personnel • budgets • activities • new observations • proprietary data • public data • gated (subscriber pays) • open access (author pays) • sponsored (funder pays) Outside influences on disciplinary culture: Funders Scientific community (media & social) Decision-makers in organizations Collaborators Data sources Editors & referees Examples of ways that public health differs from applied economics: Many co-authors, first & last author gets most credit; Results often embargoed in pursuit of press coverage Opening paragraph is about the problem, not the project Most work is grant-funded, and work is often delegated to post-docs Most work follows a stylized protocol, e.g. CONSORT and PRISMA Primary concern is conflicts of interest (e.g. nutrition.org/ensuringtrust) Also, increasing focus on transparency and replication, although still less sharing of data and code than in economics Also, more and shorter papers, with more citations (+ role of pubmed) …then methods are spelled out in detail; little focus on novelty Nutritionists can use NutriXiv.org Economists can use aspredicted.org

6. 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! Conclusion: Seeing disciplines as cultures can be very helpful