A short introduction to epidemiology

A short introduction to epidemiology

Neil Pearce
Occasional Report Series No 2 - Centre for Public Health Research,

Second Edition - February 2005

Massey University Wellington Campus - Wellington, New Zealand
To download a PDF file [153p.] at: http://publichealth.massey.ac.nz/publications/introepi.pdf

“……Public health is primarily concerned with the prevention of disease in human population. It differs from clinical medicine both in its emphasis on prevention rather than treatment, and in its focus on populations rather than individual patients (table 1.1). Epidemiology is the branch of public health which attempts to discover the causes of disease in order to make disease prevention possible. Epidemiological methods can be used in other contexts (particularly in clinical research), but this short introductory text focuses on the use of epidemiology in public health, i.e. on its use as part of the wider process of discovering the causes of disease and preventing its occurrence in human populations….”

To download PPT files for teaching: http://publichealth.massey.ac.nz/teaching_files.htm

Contents

1. Introduction
– Germs and miasmas
– Risk factor epidemiology
– Epidemiology in the 21st century

PART 1: STUDY DESIGN OPTIONS

2. Incidence studies
– Incidence studies
– Incidence case-control studies

3. Prevalence studies
– Prevalence studies
– Prevalence case-control studies

4. More complex study designs
– Other axes of classification
– Continuous outcome measures
– Ecologic and multilevel studies

5. Measurement of exposure and health status
– Exposure
– Health status

PART 2: STUDY DESIGN ISSUES

6. Precision
– Basic statistics
– Study size and power

7. Validity

– Confounding
– Selection bias
– Information bias

8. Effect modification
– Concepts of interaction
– Additive and multiplicative models
– Joint effects

More complex study designs
– Other axes of classification
– Continuous outcome measures
– Ecologic and multilevel studies

5. Measurement of exposure and health status
– Exposure
– Health status

PART 2: STUDY DESIGN ISSUES

6. Precision
– Basic statistics
– Study size and power

7. Validity
– Confounding
– Selection bias
– Information bias

8. Effect modification
– Concepts of interaction
– Additive and multiplicative models
– Joint effects

PART 3: ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF STUDIES

9. Data analysis
– Basic principles
– Basic analyses
– Controlling for confounding

10. Interpretation
– Appraisal of a single study
– Appraisal of all of the available evidence

* * * *

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