Clinical Epidemiology

Focusing on improving the diagnosis, prognosis, and management of human disease, this book takes on the issues of research design, measurement, and evaluation which are critical to clinical epidemiology. This second edition of Clinical Epidemiology: Practice and Methods opens with how best to frame a clinical research question, the ethics associated with doing a research project in humans, and the definition of various biases that occur in clinical research. From there, it continues by examining issues of design, measurement, and analysis associated with various research designs, including determination of risk in longitudinal studies, assessment of therapy in randomized controlled clinical trials, and evaluation of diagnostic tests, and then delves into the more specialized area of clinical genetic research, before concluding with basic methods used in evidence-based decision making including critical appraisal, aggregation of multiple studies using meta-analysis, health technology assessment, clinical practice guidelines, development of health policy, translational research, how to utilize administrative databases, and knowledge translation. Written for the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, chapters include the kind of detail and practical advice to ensure real world success. Comprehensive and authoritative, Clinical Epidemiology: Practice and Methods, Second Edition is intended to educate researchers on how to undertake clinical research and should be helpful not only to medical practitioners but also to basic scientists who want to extend their work to humans, to allied health professionals interested in scientific evaluation, and to trainees in clinical epidemiology.

Here is a book for clinicians, clinical investigators, trainees, and graduates who wish to develop their proficiency in the planning, execution, and interpretation of clinical and epidemiological research. Emphasis is placed on the design and analysis of research studies involving human subjects where the primary interest concerns principles of analytic (cause-and- effect) inference. The topic is presented from the standpoint of the clinician and assumes no previous knowledge of epidemiology, research design or statistics. Extensive use is made of illustrative examples from a variety of clinical specialties and subspecialties. The book is divided into three parts. Part I deals with epidemiological research design and analytic inference, including such issues as measurement, rates, analytic bias, and the main forms of observational and experimental epidemiological studies. Part II presents the principles and applications of biostatistics, with emphasis on statistical inference. Part III comprises four chapters covering such topics as diagnostic tests, decision analysis, survival (life-table) analysis, and causality.

Now in its Fifth Edition, Clinical Epidemiology: The Essentials is a comprehensive, concise, and clinically oriented introduction to the subject of epidemiology. Written by expert educators, this text introduces students to the principles of evidence-based medicine that will help them develop and apply methods of clinical observation in order to form accurate conclusions. The Fifth Edition includes more complete coverage of systematic reviews and knowledge management, as well as other key topics such as abnormality, diagnosis, frequency and risk, prognosis, treatment, prevention, chance, studying cases and cause.

“Methods of Clinical Epidemiology” serves as a text on methods useful to clinical researchers. It provides a clear introduction to the common research methodology specific to clinical research for both students and researchers. This book sets out to fill the gap left by texts that concentrate on public health epidemiology and focuses on what is not covered well in such texts. The four sections cover methods that have not previously been brought together in one text and serves as a second level textbook of clinical epidemiology methodology. This book will be of use to postgraduate students in clinical epidemiology as well as clinical researchers at the start of their careers.

The Third Edition of this popular text focuses on clinical-practice research methods. It is written by clinicians with experience in generating and answering researchable questions about real-world clinical practice and health care—the prevention, treatment, diagnosis, prognosis, and causes of diseases, the measurement of quality of life, and the effects of innovations in health services. The book has a problem-oriented and protocol-based approach and is written at an introductory level, emphasizing key principles and their applications. A bound-in CD-ROM contains the full text of the book to help the reader locate needed information.

‘Clinical epidemiology’ is now widely promoted and taught as a ‘basic science’ of Evidence-Based Medicine, of clinical EBM to be specific. This book, however, is mostly about that which Miettinen takes to be the necessary substitute for this now-so-fashionable subject – namely, Theory of Clinical Medicine together with its subordinate Theory of Clinical Research. The leit motif in all of this is Miettinen’s perception of the need, and opportunity, to bring major improvements into clinical medicine in this Information Age, now that theoretical progress has made feasible the development of practice-guiding Expert Systems for it. Parts of this text constitute essential reading for whoever is expected, or otherwise inclined, to study – or teach – ‘clinical epidemiology,’ and the same is true of those who set policy for the education of future clinicians; but practically all of it is essential reading for future – and current – academics in the various disciplines of clinical medicine. After all, the text is the result of a concentrated effort, over a half-century no less, to really understand both clinical and community medicine and the research to advance the knowledge-base of these. Research epidemiologists, too, will find this text interesting and instructive.

Concise, fast-paced, intensive introduction to clinical research design for students and clinical research professionals Readers will gain sufficient knowledge to pass the United States Medical Licensing Examination part I section in Epidemiology

Using clinical examples and citing liberally from the peer-reviewed literature, this book shows how statistical priniciples can improve medical decisions.