Epidemiology: An Introduction

Front Cover
Oxford University Press, Feb 7, 2002 - Medical - 240 pages
In the past thirty years epidemiology has matured from a fledgling scientific field into a vibrant discipline that brings together the biological and social sciences, and in doing so draws upon disciplines ranging from statistics and survey sampling to the philosophy of science. These areas of knowledge have converged into a modern theory of epidemiology that has been slow to penetrate into textbooks, particularly at the introductory level. Epidemiology: An Introduction closes the gap. It begins with a brief, lucid discussion of causal thinking and causal inference and then takes the reader through the elements of epidemiology, focusing on the measures of disease occurrence and causal effects. With these building blocks in place, the reader learns how to design, analyze and interpret problems that epidemiologists face, including confounding, the role of chance, and the exploration of interactions. All these topics are layered on the foundation of basic principles presented in simple language, with numerous examples and questions for further thought.

From inside the book

Contents

1 Introduction to Epidemiologic Thinking
1
2 What Is Causation?
8
3 Measuring Disease Occurrence and Causal Effects
24
4 Types of Epidemiologic Study
57
5 Biases in Study Design
94
6 Random Error and the Role of Statistics
113
7 Analyzing Simple Epidemiologic Data
130
8 Controlling Confounding by Stratifying Data
144
9 Measuring Interactions
168
10 Using Regression Models in Epidemiologic Analysis
181
11 Epidemiology in Clinical Settings
198
Appendix
218
Index
221
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Bibliographic information