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Health Data Reductionism

Meaning

Health Data Reductionism is a clinical and philosophical critique describing the tendency to oversimplify the complex, holistic state of human health by reducing it solely to a limited set of quantifiable, digitally trackable biomarkers or metrics. This perspective risks overlooking the intricate interplay of subjective experience, environmental factors, and unmeasured biological processes, leading to an incomplete or misleading assessment of well-being. It is a caution against equating a handful of data points, such as a single hormone level or a daily step count, with the entirety of an individual’s biological narrative.