Principles of Clinical Epidemiology

Broadly, epidemiology studies the distribution and determinants of health (or disease)-related states at the population-level. This chapter introduces readers to key concepts in clinical epidemiology, applying epidemiologic reasoning and methods to clinical medicine. This includes the role of descriptive epidemiology in medicine and important methods in analytic epidemiology such as common study designs, principles of defining exposures and outcomes, an overview of measures, and sources of bias that can threaten internal validity. Not only does this chapter cover principles that are important whether one is designing a study involving prospective data collection or utilizing existing data, but will also aid in the interpretation of existing research and the published medical and scientific literature.