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Peer-reviewed Publications
- Neuroendocrine biomarkers, social relations, and the cumulative costs
of stress in Taiwan [pdf]
Omer Gersten
Social Science & Medicine, 2008, 66(3):507-519
Invited commentaries on the above article were written by McDade [pdf] and
Loucks, Juster, and Pruessner [pdf] and I responded to these with a rejoinder (see "Invited Commentaries" below).
- The Cancer
Transition in Japan since 1951 [pdf]
Omer Gersten and John Wilmoth
Demographic Research, 2002, 7(5):271-306
The most important theoretical contribution of this paper is the idea that a key element of Omran's now classic "epidemiologic transition" can be extended to cancers. According to the epidemiologic transition,
population health burdens have historically shifted from diseases mainly infectious in origin, like tuberculosis and smallpox, to those non-infectious in origin, like heart disease and cancer. It is inaccurate, this paper argues, to present cancer as an exemplar of the switch to diseases without an infectious root since in many important cancers, like
that of the stomach and liver, infections play a major role in their onset. Nevertheless, one can apply the epidemiologic transition framework to cancers as a group because it is precisely those with an infectious
root that are in decline and those related more to lifestyle and behaviors that are on the increase. We call this shift over time in the makeup of the cancer disease burden the "cancer transition."
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