RE: BOOK REVIEW OF 'CONCEPTS OF EPIDEMIOLOGY: INTEGRATING THE IDEAS, THEORIES, PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF EPIDEMIOLOGY, 2ND EDITION'

摘要

Dr. Samet's thoughtful observations (1) about my book (2) will prove useful for a third edition. Dr. Samet emphasizes that the sequencing of Concepts of Epidemiology is unusual but the reasoning unstated. My approach was to1. make each chapter self-contained and to use cross-links to related material, so students and teachers can adopt various sequences.2. introduce all the basic concepts before turning to methods and techniques.3. move from the general to the specific to the general.4. emphasize understanding.One innovation was a chapter on the concept of population, which was either missing or cursory in alternativetextbooks in 1996 when I started (3). In the second edition, I introduced incidence and prevalence, and study design, in the first chapter (section 1.7)-albeit briefly (2). My experience of trying to excite undergraduate medical students, health service managers, and multidisciplinary masters of public health classes taught me that virtually everyone found the ideas of epidemiology inspiring but that the methods and techniques were boring (and difficult) for some. Using my sequence, learners gain a motivating understanding of why epidemiologic techniques and methods are important before tackling them. I aimed to counter the criticism of epidemiology as an atheoretical, toolbox type of discipline divorced from its public health/population health base or scientific theories of health and disease (4).