Colonial medicine
Empire and Britain's chronic-disease science
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Moore argues that Britain's post-war hunt for chronic-disease causes turned colonial populations into comparative research material, not just tropical medicine leftovers.
Key findings
Comparative epidemiology treated communities 'at an early stage of development' as a way to untangle 'ways of living' behind a 'modern epidemic' of middle-aged male CHD. Difference-seeking sent British researchers to colonial subjects. After decolonisation the Board still wanted an 'overseas base in a shrinking world'; the Jamaican unit later shifted toward sickle-cell work.
Methodology
Reads Jerry Morris's Uses of Epidemiology alongside published CHD/hypertension studies and Colonial Medical Research Committee (later Tropical Medical Research Board) files, especially the Epidemiological Research Unit in Jamaica and its afterlife.
Limitations
This is not a new cohort study of hypertension, nor proof that colonial comparison was the only origin of risk-factor epidemiology. It does not measure present-day Caribbean heart-disease rates.
How this study connects
Role on claims
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Britain’s post-war chronic-disease epidemiology turned colonial populations into comparative research subjects, not just tropical leftovers.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
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