Epidemiology : beyond the basics / Moyses Szklo, F. Javier Nieto.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Basic study designs in analytical epidemiology -- Introduction: descriptive and analytical epidemiology -- Analysis of age, birth cohort, and period effects -- Ecologic studies -- Studies based on individuals as observation units -- Measuring disease occurrence -- Introduction: basic elements of epidemiologic inference; defining and counting disease outcomes -- Measures of incidence -- Measures of prevalence -- Odds -- Measuring associations between exposures and outcomes -- Introduction -- Measuring associations in a cohort study -- Cross-sectional studies: point prevalence rate ratio -- Measuring associations in case-control studies --Assessing the strength of associations -- Threats to validity and issues of interpretation -- Understanding lack of validity: bias overview -- Selection bias -- Information bias -- Combined selection/information biases -- Biases in reporting study results: publication bias -- Identifying noncausal associations: confounding -- Introduction -- The nature of the association between the confounder, the exposure, and the outcome -- Assessing the presence of confounding -- Additional issues related to confounding -- Conclusion -- Defining and assessing heterogeneity of effects: interaction -- Introduction -- How is effect measured? -- Strategies to evaluate interaction -- Assessment of interaction in case-control studies -- More on the interchangeability of the definitions of interaction -- Which is the relevant model: additive versus multiplicative interaction? -- The nature and reciprocity of interaction -- Interaction, confounding effect, and adjustment -- Statistical modeling and statistical tests for interaction -- Interpreting interaction -- Interaction and search for new risk factors in low-risk groups -- Interaction and "representativeness" of associations -- Dealing with threats to validity -- Stratification and adjustment: multivariate analysis in epidemiology -- Introduction -- Stratification and adjustment techniques to disentangle confounding -- Adjustment methods based on stratification -- Multiple regression techniques for adjustment -- Incomplete adjustment: residual confounding -- Overadjustment -- Conclusion -- Quality assurance and control -- Introduction -- Quality assurance -- Quality control -- Indices of validity and reliability -- Regression to the mean -- Issues of reporting -- Communicating results of epidemiologic studies -- Introduction -- What to report -- How to report -- Conclusion -- Appendix A: standard errors, confidence intervals and hypothesis testing for selected measures of risk and measures of association -- Appendix B: test for trend (dose response) -- Appendix C: test of homogeneity of stratified estimates (test for interaction) -- Appendix D: quality assurance and quality control procedures manual for blood pressure measurement and blood/urine collection in the ARIC study -- Appendix E: calculation of the intraclass correlation coefficient.