Part one of a two-part series on what we count and why.
Lord Kelvin, the influential British mathematician (and namesake of the Kelvin scale, which he developed), once said:
“When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind: it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.”
Public health is concerned with precisely this—a largely quantitative mode of measurement, a process of counting which helps us better understand the world and the health of populations. On one hand, counting can seem like a simple matter—“easy,” as the saying goes, “as 1, 2, 3.” Yet counting is also complex, fraught with value judgements about what we choose to count and not count and how we go about the counting process. In the next two essays, I will tackle how counting intersects with the work of health. I will start with some thoughts on the politics of measurement—the matter of what we count and why—before moving next week to the strengths and limitations of quantitative approaches.
I will start with measurement, with the metrics that help us do what we do and evaluate how well we are doing it.
I have written previously about how this is a time to build, to shape a stronger foundation for public health. Building takes planning. It takes careful consideration of what we want to create, the pragmatic steps necessary to make this vision a reality, and the metrics by which we will hold ourselves accountable for our stewardship of this process.
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