Public Health and Epidemiology at a Glance (eBook)

Margaret Somerville is Director of Public Health and HealthPolicy, NHS Highland, Inverness K. Kumaran is a Consultant in Public Health Medicine, NHSSomerset Rob Anderson, Institute of Health ServiceResearch, Peninsula Medical School, Exeter

Preface 6

Acknowledgements 7

About the authors 7

1 Introduction to public health 8

Epidemiology and Evidence-Based Practice

2 Incidence and prevalence 10

3 Risks and odds 12

4 Hierarchy of evidence and investigating causation 14

5 Bias, confounding and chance in epidemiological studies 16

6 Standardisation 18

7 Ecological and cross-sectional studies 20

8 Case-control and cohort studies 22

9 Trials (experimental studies) 24

10 Systematic reviews and meta-analysis 26

11 Diagnostic tests 28

Assessing Population Health

12 Health and illness 30

13 Demography 32

14 Epidemiological transition 34

15 Health information 36

16 Measuring population health status 38

17 Lifestyle determinants of health 40

18 Environmental determinants of health 42

19 Inequalities in health 44

20 Socio-economic inequalities in health 46

21 Health needs assessment 48

Improving and Protecting Health

22 Disease prevention 50

23 Principles of disease transmission 52

24 Communicable disease control 54

25 Surveillance 56

26 Immunisation 58

27 Screening principles 60

28 Screening programmes 62

29 Health promotion 64

30 Changing behaviour 66

Health Economics

31 Economic perspectives on health 68

32 Economic evaluation 70

33 Economic perspectives on measuring health-related outcomes72

34 Economics of public health problems 74

Effective Health Care

35 Health care systems 76

36 Planning health services 78

37 Health care evaluation 80

Self-Assessment

Self-assessment questions 82

Self-assessment answers 84

Appendix: Practical issues in conducting epidemiological studies85

Further reading 87

Index 88

"Also featuring self-assessment questions to help testlearning, this new title will provide an invaluable resource formedical and healthcare students, junior doctors, and thosepreparing for a career in public health." (Kingbook73's Medical Ebook and Video Collection, 26August 2014)

"This is a useful summary that provides a quick overviewso that students or professionals can acquire the basic knowledgeof public health. The book is contemporary with recent referencesand examples. While the book presents basic concepts, the examplesare from the U.K., hence their applicability is more relevant for aU.K. audience." (Doody's, 30 August2012)Pre-publication review: "Like most other medical students Iam guilty of ignoring epidemiology and not really seeing orapplying its relevance to my studies. I thought this book was trulyexcellent in highlighting how important it is to my future careeras a doctor. It was clear, concise and an enjoyable read. I feelthat this book is a truly needed publication, which takes theconfusion and monotony out of the subject." (3rd yearMedical Student, University of Southampton)