Description

Epidemiology Foundations: The Science of Public Health is an accessible introduction to epidemiology and the perfect text for instructors teaching an overview or introductory course, or for colleges incorporating epidemiologic content into liberal arts programs. It covers foundations, history, health and disease, descriptive epi, measurement, study designs, uses, epidemics, social epi, screening, community health, and global health. This book has been developed to closely respond to recommendations by the Consensus Conference on Undergraduate Public Health Education that all colleges and universities offer introductory course work in public health and epidemiology that satisfy social science and science distribution requirements respectively. Epidemiology Foundations is presented in three parts: Foundations, Tools and Methods, and Practice. Part 1, Foundations, brings the reader up to speed on basic definitions, concepts and applications of public health epidemiology. Part 2 presents the tools in a practical way, showing how some tools are descriptive, while others are used for measurement. In this part, students will learn that observation is as powerful tool as experimentation. Part 3 presents epidemiology and public health in the more practical and familiar context of practice, showing how study results are used, how epidemics are tracked and (sometimes) prevented or cured, the role of social and economic factors in health, and how certain groups of people are deemed in need of screening for certain diseases.