Coinfection, Comorbidity, and Syndemics: On the Edges of Epidemic Historiography

Abstract

This bibliographic essay introduces three concepts to the historiography of epidemics and pandemics: coinfection, comorbidity, and syndemics. All three of these concepts have seen considerable popularity in the social sciences—and to some extent in epidemiology—but have not been used much in historical scholarship. The essay attributes this to the continued prevalence of disease specificity and its accompanying historical genre, the disease biography, in the history of science, medicine, and public health. Through the introduction of some of the important literature on each of the three concepts this essay seeks to raise conceptual and methodological questions on the boundaries between the social sciences and historical scholarship on epidemics and pandemics. Introducing this scholarship aims at increasing the capacity for transdisciplinary collaboration and to further integrate the reflection on epidemics of the past with the contemporary analysis of epidemics in their social, cultural, and environmental situatedness.