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European Journal of Epidemiology
Published in: European Journal of Epidemiology 12/2020

01-12-2020 | ESSAY

When will individuals meet their personalized probabilities? A philosophical note on risk prediction

Authors: Olaf M. Dekkers, Jesse M. Mulder

Published in: European Journal of Epidemiology | Issue 12/2020

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Abstract

Risk prediction is one of the central goals of medicine. However, ultimate prediction–perfectly predicting whether individuals will actually get a disease–is still out of reach for virtually all conditions. One crucial assumption of ultimate personalized prediction is that individual risks in the relevant sense exist. In the present paper we argue that perfect prediction at the individual level will fail–and we will do so by providing pragmatic, epistemic, conceptual, and ontological arguments.
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Metadata
Title
When will individuals meet their personalized probabilities? A philosophical note on risk prediction
Authors
Olaf M. Dekkers
Jesse M. Mulder
Publication date
01-12-2020
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
European Journal of Epidemiology / Issue 12/2020
Print ISSN: 0393-2990
Electronic ISSN: 1573-7284
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-020-00700-w

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