Epidemiology Matters

Katherine M. Keyes, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University. Her research focuses on life course epidemiology with particular attention to psychiatric disorders, including cross-generational cohort effects on substance use, mental health, and chronic disease. She has particular expertise in the development and application of novel epidemiological methods, and in the development of epidemiological theory to measure and elucidate the drivers of population health. Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, is Chair of the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University. His work focuses on the social production of health of urban populations, innovative cells-to-society approaches to population health, and advancing a consequentialist approach to epidemiology in the service of population health. He is a past president of the Society for Epidemiologic Research and an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science.

Epidemiology Matters makes a nice addition to the existing roster of introductory epidemiology texts. The authors provide a clear introduction to central epidemiologic concepts, including causality, internal validity, external validity, study design, and measures of association using a step-bystep approach. Their well-designed website provides useful supplementary materials... The book will be useful to students who take only one course in epidemiology, as well as to scholars who decide to pursue epidemiology in more depth.

• 1. An introduction ; 2. What is a population and what is population health? ; 3. What is an exposure, what is a disease, and how do we measure them? ; 4. What is a sample? ; 5. Watching a sample, counting cases ; 6. Are exposures associated with health indicators? ; 7. What is a cause? ; 8. Is the association causal, or are there alternative explanations? ; 9. How do non-causal associations arise? ; 10. How can we mitigate against non-causal associations in design and analysis? ; 11. When do causes work together? ; 12. Do the results matter beyond the study sample? ; 13. How do we identify disease early to minimize its consequences? ; 14. Conclusion: Epidemiology and what matters most