Essential Epidemiology: An Introduction for Students and Health Professionals

by Penny Webb , Chris Bain

• ISBN13: 9780521177313
• ISBN10: 0521177316
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-01-31
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The new edition of this popular textbook remains a clear and practical introduction to epidemiology for students in all areas of health. By emphasising the role of epidemiology across a broad range of health monitoring and research, it gives students an understanding of the fundamental principles common to all areas of epidemiology. It also integrates the study of infectious and chronic diseases as well as public health and clinical epidemiology. Avoiding complex mathematics, it steps through the methods and potential problems underlying health data and reports, while maintaining a balance of rigour and clarity. The nuts-and-bolts of epidemiology are embedded in the wider international health perspective through recent and classical examples across different areas of health to engage students from a range of backgrounds. Concepts are illustrated with charts and graphs, and end-of-chapter questions test understanding (with answers provided). Online resources include further exercises, slides for teaching and useful weblinks.

Table of Contents

Epidemiology is ...

How long is a piece of string? Measuring disease frequency

Who, what, where and when? Descriptive epidemiology

Healthy research: study designs for public health

Why? Linking exposure and disease

Heads or tails?: The role of chance

All that glitters is not gold: the problem of error

Muddied waters: the challenge of confounding

Reading between the lines: reading and writing epidemiological papers

Who sank the boat? Association and causation

Assembling the building blocks: reviews and their uses

Outbreaks, epidemics and clusters

Watching not waiting: surveillance and epidemiological intelligence

Prevention: better than cure?

Early detection: what benefits at what cost?

A final word ...;; Answers to questions

Direct standardisation

Standard populations

Calculating cumulative incidence and lifetime risk from routine data

Indirect standardisation

Calculating life expectancy from a life table

The Mantel-Haenszel method for calculating pooled odds ratios

Formulae for calculating confidence intervals for common epidemiological measures

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.