A Pocket Guide to Epidemiology

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-vii

   PDF

2. A Pocket-Size Introduction

   Pages 1-1

3. The Big Picture - with Examples

   Pages 3-20

4. How to Set Things Up? Study Designs

   Pages 21-41

5. How Often does it Happen? Disease Frequency

   Pages 43-70

6. What’s the Answer? Measures of Effect

   Pages 71-90

7. What is the Public Health Impact?

   Pages 91-108

8. Is There Something Wrong? Validity and Bias

   Pages 109-125

9. Were Subjects Chosen Badly? Selection Bias

   Pages 127-137

10. Are the Data Correct? Information Bias

    Pages 139-159

11. Other Factors Accounted for? Confounding and Interaction

    Pages 161-178

12. Confounding can be Confounding - Several Risk Factors

    Pages 179-189

13. Simple Analyses- 2×2 Tables are not that Simple

    Pages 191-225

14. Control - What It’s all about

    Pages 227-243

15. How to Deal with Lots of Tables? Stratified Analysis

    Pages 245-256

16. Matching - Seems Easy, But not that Easy

    Pages 257-275

17. Back Matter

    Pages 277-281

    PDF

A Pocket Guide to Epidemiology is a stand-alone introductory text on the basic principles and concepts of epidemiology. The primary audience for this text is the public health student or professional, clinician, health journalist, and anyone else at any age or life experience that is interested in learning what epidemiology is all about in a convenient, easy to understand format with timely, real-world health examples.

• basics of research in the health sciencees
• epidemiology
• introductory epidemiology
• medical research
• public health
• infectious diseases

From the reviews:

"A Pocket Guide to Epidemiology is a useful addition to the ready reference genre of epidemiological texts. … The text offers a comprehensive look at the salient fundamentals of epidemiology. … Organized logically and replete with classic examples, the text offers a firm foundation in epidemiological methodology. … this guide offers more examples and may be a better choice for the reader who desires to become better acquainted with epidemiology." (Gregory E. Gilbert, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 62 (1), 2008)

"The book would be very suitable for public health students, professionals, and teachers interested in time-efficient and enjoyable introduction to epidemiology....this book gives a good basis in the theory behind epidemiolgy and I highly recommend it as a first step into this discipline." (Journal of Applied Statistics, March 2008)

"This book … is a simple-to-read introductory text dealing with the most basic concepts of epidemiology. … It is an abbreviated, stand-alone version that narrows the discussion to the most ‘essential’ principles and methods in epidemiology. … The book would be very suitable for public health students, professionals, and teachers interested in time-efficient and enjoyable introduction to epidemiology. … In short, this book gives a good basis in the theory behind epidemiology and I highly recommend it as a first step into this discipline." (Faisel Yunus, Journal of Applied Statistics, Vol. 35 (3), 2008)

"The book provides a unified comprehensive coverage of the design, outcome and analysis issues of epidemiological studies. … an excellent guide for ‘the public health student or professional, clinician, health journalist and anyone … interested in learning what epidemiology is all about…’. Many learners … will find this book refreshingly easy to understand. … educators will also find it a useful resource for any student whooften finds epidemiological concepts bewildering. … a worthwhile purchase and a must-have for any health sciences library." (Lehana Thabane, International Statistical Review, Vol. 75 (1), 2007)

• Department of Epidemiology Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, USA

  David G. Kleinbaum, Kevin M. Sullivan

• Alpharetta, USA

  Nancy D. Barker

David G. Kleinbaum is a Professor of Epidemiology at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta, GA, and an internationally recognized expert in teaching biostatistical and epidemiological concepts and methods at all levels. He is the author or co-author of several widely acclaimed textbooks including ActivEpi CD ROM, The ActivEpi Companion Textbook, Applied Regression Analysis and Other Multivariable Methods, Epidemiologic Research: Principles and Quantitative Methods, Logistic Regression-A Self-Learning Text, and Survival Analysis-A Self-Learning Text. Dr. Kleinbaum has more than 25 years of experience teaching over 100 short courses on statistical and epidemiologic methods to a variety of international audiences, and has published widely in both the methodological and applied public health literature. He is also an experienced and sought-after consultant, and is presently an ad-hoc consultant to research staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In December 2005, Dr. Kleinbaum was the first recipient of the Association of Schools of Public Health Pfizer Award for Career Teaching Excellence. In November 2006, he also received the American Public Health Association's 2006 award for Career Teaching Excellence in Epidemiology.

Dr. Kevin M. Sullivan is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health. He has worked in the area of epidemiology and public health for over 30 years and has over 80 publications in peer-reviewed journals and has published chapters in several books. He is one of the developers of Epi Info, a freely downloadable web-based software package for the analysis of epidemiologic data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is also the co-author of OpenEpi, a freely downloadable web-based calculator for epidemiologic data (www.OpenEpi.com).

Ms. Nancy Barker is a statistical consultant who formerly worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She is an Instructor in the Career MPH at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University where she teaches a distance learning course on basic epidemiology that uses ActivEpi CD and ActivEpi Companion Text as the course textbooks.

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