Public Health and Epidemiology at a Glance (eBook)

Margaret Somerville is Director of Public Health and Health Policy at NHS Highland. Previously she was Senior Lecturer and Director of Public Health Learning in the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry. Kumaran Kalyanaraman is Clinical Scientist and Senior Lecturer, MRC Life course Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton Medical School. Rob Anderson is Associate Professor of Health Economics and Evaluation at the University of Exeter Medical School.

Preface to the Second Edition vii

Acknowledgements viii

About the Authors ix

How to Use Your Textbook x

Part 1 Introduction 1

1 Introduction to public health 2

2 Public health old and new 4

Part 2 Epidemiology and evidence-based practice 7

3 Incidence and prevalence 8

4 Risks and odds 10

5 Hierarchy of evidence and investigating causation 12

6 Bias, confounding and chance in epidemiological studies 14

7 Standardisation 16

8 Ecological and cross-sectional studies 18

9 Case-control studies 20

10 Cohort studies 22

11 Trials (experimental studies) 24

12 Systematic reviews and meta-analysis 26

13 Diagnostic tests 28

14 Developing clinical guidelines 30

Part 3 Assessing population health 33

15 Health and illness 34

16 Demographic and epidemiological transitions 36

17 Health information 38

18 Measuring population health status 40

19 Determinants of health 42

20 Lifestyle determinants of health 44

21 Social determinants of health 46

22 Environmental determinants of health 48

23 Inequalities in health 50

24 Health needs assessment 52

25 Maternal and infant health 54

26 Health of older people 56

Part 4 Improving and protecting health 59

27 Disease prevention 60

28 Principles of disease transmission 62

29 Communicable disease control 64

30 Surveillance 66

31 Immunisation 68

32 Screening principles 70

33 Screening programmes 72

34 Health promotion 74

35 Changing behaviour 76

Part 5 Health economics 79

36 Economic perspectives on health 80

37 Economic evaluation 82

38 Economic perspectives on measuring health-related outcomes 84

39 Economics of public health problems 86

Part 6 Effective healthcare 89

40 Healthcare systems 90

41 Planning health services 92

42 Improving services 94

43 Healthcare evaluation 98

Self-assessment questions 100

Self-assessment answers 102

Appendix: practical issues in conducting epidemiological studies 105

Further reading 107

Index 108