An Introduction to Epidemiology for Health Professionals

Description

An Introduction to Epidemiology for Health Professionals Jorn Olsen, Kaare Christensen, Jeff Murray, and Anders Ekbom Who gets sick? What factors—genetic, environmental, social—contribute to their illness? Easy enough to ask, but the answers are becoming increasingly complicated. Today, as the public worries about emerging diseases and the word epidemic is part of the general discussion, epidemiology should be a basic component of medical training, yet often it is undertaught or even neglected. Concise and readable while also rigorous and thorough, An Introduction to Epidemiology for Health Professionals goes beyond standard textbook content to ground the reader in scientific methods most relevant to the current health landscape and the evolution of evidence-based medicine—valuable keys to better understanding of disease process, effective prevention, and targeted treatment. This volume: Presents material accessibly for readers who may have not studied epidemiology. Focuses equally in descriptive and analytic branches of epidemiology. Demonstrates applications of descriptive and analytic methods in public health, genetic epidemiology, and clinical epidemiology. Includes a "Sources of Error" section addressing problems in inference and decision-making, selection bias, and other common pitfalls. In addition to its usefulness for graduate students in public health and medical students in clinical epidemiology, An Introduction to Epidemiology for Health Professionals is a timely reference for practitioners needing a refresher in this important discipline. Front Matter....Pages i-xii Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Measures of Disease Occurrence....Pages 3-13 Estimates of Associations....Pages 15-17 Age Standardization....Pages 19-21 Causes of Diseases....Pages 23-28 Descriptive Epidemiology in Public Health....Pages 29-35 Descriptive Epidemiology in Genetic Epidemiology....Pages 37-41 Descriptive Epidemiology in Clinical Epidemiology....Pages 43-47 Front Matter....Pages 49-49 Design Options....Pages 51-57 Follow-Up Studies....Pages 59-65 Case–Control Studies....Pages 67-78 The Cross-Sectional Study....Pages 79-79 The Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT)....Pages 81-84 Analytical Epidemiology in Public Health....Pages 85-87 Analytical Epidemiology in Genetic Epidemiology....Pages 89-94 Analytical Epidemiology in Clinical Epidemiology....Pages 95-99 Front Matter....Pages 101-101 Confounding and Bias....Pages 103-105 Confounding....Pages 107-111 Information Bias....Pages 113-117 Selection Bias....Pages 119-122 Making Inference and Making Decisions....Pages 123-127 Front Matter....Pages 101-101 Sources of Error in Public Health Epidemiology....Pages 129-134 Sources of Error in Genetic Epidemiology....Pages 135-137 Sources of Error in Clinical Epidemiology....Pages 139-143 Front Matter....Pages 145-150 P Values....Pages 151-153 Calculating Confidence Intervals....Pages 155-156 Erratum to: An Introduction to Epidemiology for Health Professionals....Pages 157-157 Back Matter....Pages 159-163