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Sevgi O. Aral, Nancy S. Padian, King K. Holmes, Advances in Multilevel Approaches to Understanding the Epidemiology and Prevention of Sexually Transmitted Infections and HIV: An Overview, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Volume 191, Issue Supplement_1, February 2005, Pages S1–S6, https://doi.org/10.1086/425290
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The distribution of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV infection, across individuals and subgroups within societies and across populations still preoccupies scientists of multiple disciplinary backgrounds. Systematic observation of how such distributions change over time in the presence and absence of preventive interventions underscores the complex, almost mysterious, multilevel multifactorial causation of the epidemiological profile of STIs. The importance of attention to both the individual- and population-level factors that cause and prevent chronic and communicable diseases has been emphasized elsewhere [1, 2]
During the past 10–15 years, we have witnessed remarkable advances in a number of scientific domains, each of which has important implications for our understanding of the epidemiology and prevention of STIs. The emergent linkages and overlaps among these domains are reminiscent of Wilson’s concept of consilience—that is, the interlocking of causal explanation across disciplines [3]. These converging advances promise even faster growth in our understanding of the determinants and potential for prevention of STIs in populations in the near future, while simultaneously offering us important insights at the present time