Epidemiology - courses, concepts, methods, resources

• Up one level
• Epidemiology courses and textbooks
• A Method to Visualize and Adjust for Selection Bias in Prevalent Cohort Studies
  A Method to Visualize and Adjust for Selection Bias in Prevalent Cohort Studies Anna Törner, Paul Dickman, Ann-Sofi Duberg, Sigurdur Kristinsson, Ola Landgren, Magnus Björkholm and Åke Svensson American Journal of Epidemiology 2011;174(8):969-976
• Assessing Equivalence: An Alternative to the Use of Difference Tests for Measuring Disparities in Vaccination Coverage
  Lawrence E. Barker, Elizabeth T. Luman, Mary M. McCauley, Susan Y. Chu. Am J Epidemiol (2002) 156 (11): 1056-1061. Abstract: Eliminating health disparities in vaccination coverage among various groups is a cornerstone of public health policy. However, the statistical tests traditionally used cannot prove that a state of no difference between groups exists. Instead of asking, “Has a disparity—or difference—in immunization coverage among population groups been eliminated ?,” one can ask, “Has practical equivalence been achieved?” A method called equivalence testing can show that the difference between groups is smaller than a tolerably small amount. This paper demonstrates the method and introduces public health considerations that have an impact on defining tolerable levels of difference. Using data from the 2000 National Immunization Survey, the authors tested for statistically significant differences in rates of vaccination coverage between Whites and members of other racial/ethnic groups and for equivalencies among Whites and these same groups. For some minority groups and some vaccines, coverage was statistically significantly lower than was seen among Whites; however, for some of these groups and vaccines, equivalence testing revealed practical equivalence. To use equivalence testing to assess whether a disparity remains a threat to public health, researchers must understand when to use the method, how to establish assumptions about tolerably small differences, and how to interpret the test results.
• Conflict of Interest: A Hazard for Epidemiology
  John Acquavella, Annals of Epidemiology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2019.03.003
  "More cooperation to resolve differing viewpoints among those with competing conflicts of interest would likely expedite progress in epidemiology."
• Epidemiologic approaches to health disparities
  Vol. 31 | 2009. Sherman James, chair, Editorial Committee - conceptual article by Sherman James plus 10 review articles
• Epidemiology and culture
  James A. Trostle, Cambridge University Press, Feb 21, 2005 - Medical - 208 pages This book shows how practitioners in the emerging field of "cultural epidemiology" describe human health, communicate with diverse audiences, and intervene to improve health and prevent disease. It uses textual and statistical portraits of disease to describe past and present collaborations between anthropology and epidemiology. Interpreting epidemiology as a cultural practice helps to reveal the ways in which measurement, causal thinking, and intervention design are all influenced by belief, habit, and theories of power.
• Henry Blackburn seminar on the history of epidemiology at Univ of Minnesota
  Includes national perspectives
• Historical Perspective: The social determinants of disease – some roots of the movement
  S. Leonard Syme. Epidemiologic Perspectives & Innovations20052:2 This is an account of the early days of research on social determinants as I experienced them. I describe my time as one of four Fellows in a new training program in Medical Sociology at Yale University and how I came to be the first Sociologist employed in the U.S. Public Health Service. I then became the first Executive Secretary of a new Study Section at NIH dealing with a small number of research grant proposals in the field of Epidemiology. My account deals with some of my experiences in this developing field, culminating with my appointment as the first Sociologist to become a Professor of Epidemiology in a School of Public Health.
• HRSA - EnRICH Webinar Series
  EnRICH Webinar Series EnRICH (Research Innovations & Challenges) is a series of webinars that feature special topics related to Maternal and Child Health (MCH) research. Each event features one or more speakers who are experts in the field. EnRICH webinars are conducted by the MCH Training and Research Resource Center, which is funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau's (MCHB) Office of Epidemiology and Research. Recent webcasts: Qualitative Methods for Public Health: An Overview and Introduction Estimating Absolute Differences and Relative Rate Ratios from Regression Models Using Electronic Health Records for Health Services Research Meta-Analysis and Systematic Reviews
• Individually Randomized Group-Treatment Trials (IRGTs)
  An individually randomized group-treatment trial (IRGT) is a randomized trial in which participants in one or more study conditions receive at least some of their treatment in groups or through a common change agent. This design is common in surgical trials, where each surgeon operates on multiple patients.14, 44 It is common in psychotherapy trials, where a therapist may treat multiple patients, either in groups or as individuals.3, 11, 53 It is common in a variety of intervention trials addressing health behaviors such as weight loss, smoking cessation, and physical activity, which may include group activities as well as individual activities. (Archived page courtesy of the Internet Archive)
• Invited Commentary: Cassel's “The Contribution of the Social Environment to Host Resistance”—A Modern Classic
  Sherman A. James. American Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 185, Issue 11, 1 June 2017, Pages 1032–1034, https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwx070
  Abstract
  John Cassel's 1976 paper “The Contribution of the Social Environment to Host Resistance” (Am J Epidemiol. 1976;104(2):107–123) is widely regarded as a classic in epidemiology. He makes the compelling argument that the quality of a person's social relationships, that is, the degree to which her relationships are more stressful than supportive (or vice versa) influences her susceptibility to disease independent of genetic endowment, diet, physical activity, etc. Cassel's provocative thesis was anchored in a cogent synthesis of findings from animal experiments and observational studies on diverse human populations. Beginning in the late 1970s, the paper stimulated an explosion of epidemiologic research on social support and human health. Beyond advancing epidemiologic theory, Cassel showed how findings from various epidemiologic study designs could be marshalled to build a persuasive causal argument that impaired social bonds increase the risk of premature disease and death. The paper also foreshadowed core ideas of later theoretical constructs, such as weathering and allostatic load, regarding the power of chronic environmental stressors to accelerate biological aging across multiple organ systems. Cassel's assessment of the research and practice implications of his conclusions has remarkable contemporary resonance for the field of epidemiology.
• Issue on Systems Thinking
  American Journal of Public Health, March 2006;96(3) has an editorial and several articles on systems thinking in public health
• Judy Simpson - Accounting for Cluster Randomization: A Review of Primary Prevention Trials, 1990 through 1993
  Judy M. Simpson, Neil Klar, Allan Donner
  American Journal of Public Health 1995 (Oct);85(10):1378-1383
• Katherine Flegal et al. - Letter. Using adjusted relative risks to calculate attributable fractions
  American Journal of Public Health, March 2006;96(3):398. The response from Suzanne Leveille et al. response is at http://ajph.aphapublications.org.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2005.081885
• Limitations and misinterpretations of E-values for sensitivity analyses of observational studies
  Ioannidis JPA, Tan YJ, Blum MR. Limitations and misinterpretations of E-values for sensitivity analyses of observational studies. Ann Intern Med 2019;170(2):108-111.
  Abstract
  The E-value was recently introduced on the basis of earlier work as “the minimum strength of association…that an unmeasured confounder would need to have with both the treatment and the outcome to fully explain away a specific treatment–outcome association, conditional on the measured covariates.” E-values have been proposed for wide application in observational studies evaluating causality. However, they have limitations and are prone to misinterpretation. E-values have a monotonic, almost linear relationship with effect estimates and thus offer no additional information beyond what effect estimates can convey. Whereas effect estimates are based on real data, E-values may make unrealistic assumptions. No general rule can exist about what is a “small enough” E-value, and users of the biomedical literature are not familiar with how to interpret a range of E-values. Problems arise for any measure dependent on effect estimates and their CIs—for example, bias due to selective reporting and dependence on choice of exposure contrast and level of confidence. The automation of E-values may give an excuse not to think seriously about confounding. Moreover, biases other than confounding may still undermine results. Instead of misused or misinterpreted E-values, the authors recommend judicious use of existing methods for sensitivity analyses with careful assumptions; systematic assessments of whether and how known confounders have been handled, along with consideration of their prevalence and magnitude; thorough discussion of the potential for unknown confounders considering the study design and field of application; and explicit caution in making causal claims from observational studies.
• Moyses Szklo - Epidemiology for Public Health: Are We Missing the Boat?
  John Cassel Distinguished Lecture, Department of Epidemiology, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health Presented by Moyses Szklo, MD, Professor of Epidemiology, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University February 4, 2015, at Tate-Turner-Kuralt, UNC School of Social Work, Chapel Hill, NC. Introduction by Andrew Olshan, Professor and Chair, UNC Department of Epidemiology.
• Nancy Krieger, Epidemiology and the Web of Causation: Has Anyone Seen the Spider?
  Soc. Sci. Med. 1994; 39(7):887-903. (Archived pdf courtesy of the Internet Archive)
• Nancy Krieger, Theories for social epidemiology in the 21st century: an ecosocial perspective
  International Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 30, Issue 4, 1 August 2001, Pages 668–677, https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/30.4.668
  * Shared observations of disparities in health do not necessarily translate to common understandings of cause; it is for this reason theory is key.
  * In contemporary social epidemiology, the three main theoretical frameworks for explaining disease distribution are: (1) psychosocial, (2) social production of disease/political economy of health, and (3) ecosocial and other emerging multi-level frameworks.
  * A psychosocial framework directs attention to endogenous biological responses to human interactions; a social production of disease/political economy of health framework explicitly addresses economic and political determinants of health and disease but leaves biology opaque; ecosocial and other emerging multi-level frameworks seek to integrate social and biological reasoning and a dynamic, historical and ecological perspective to develop new insights into determinants of population distributions of disease and social inequalities in health.
  * To gain clarity on causes of and barriers to reducing social inequalities in health, social epidemiologists will need to generate improved theoretical frameworks and the necessary data to test and refine them.
• Nancy Krieger - Ecosocial Epidemiology (43 min)
  Posted Mar 11, 2013. Includes transcript.
• Neil Pearce, Traditional Epidemiology, Modern Epidemiology, and Public Health
  Am J Public Health May 1996;86:678-683
• On the role of "transients" (biasing transitional effects) for the prognostic analysis of the AIDS epidemic
  Jose J. Gonzalez, Michael G. Koch
  American Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 126, Issue 6, December 1987, Pages 985–1005, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a114768
  Data on observed cases of a condition for which the time from onset to detection varies substantially can be particularly misleading in a rapidly evolving epidemic.
  
• Overview of new NIH policies on human subjects research
  Video presentation with slides about requirements going into effect at the beginning of 2018
• Profile of Anthony J. McMichael
  McMichael, elected in 2011 to the National Academy of Sciences, is a strong proponent of expanding epidemiology research from individual- to population-level studies. To this day, researchers focus more on the environmental and economic repercussions of a warming world than on how such changes might affect human health—a potentially dangerous distraction, he says. To remedy that oversight, McMichael’s Inaugural Article explores how major climatic events over the past 12,000 years have influenced human health and survival, and how even mild to moderate climate change can lead to the disruption and collapse of societies (1). With the global temperature likely to increase by 3 °C to 4 °C over the next 100 years—considerably more than the fraction-of-a-degree fluctuations that influenced the outbreak and spread of the bubonic plague in mid-14th century Europe—the risk to human health is graver than we realized, he says. “Climate change is not just about disruptions to the local economy or loss of jobs or loss of iconic species. It’s actually about weakening the foundations the life support systems that we depend on as a human species.”
• Public Health Monitoring of Privilege and Deprivation With the Index of Concentration at the Extremes
  Nancy Krieger, Pamela D. Waterman, Jasmina Spasojevic, Wenhui Li, Gil Maduro, Gretchen Van Wye. AJPH: February 2016; 106(2):256–263. "The ICE may be a useful metric for public health monitoring, as it simultaneously captures extremes of privilege and deprivation and can jointly measure economic and racial/ethnic segregation."
• Raj Bhopal. Concepts of epidemiology
  an integrated introduction to the ideas, theories, principles and methods of epidemiology
• Reliability of Self-rated Health in US Adults
  Reliability of Self-rated Health in US Adults Anna Zajacova and Jennifer Beam Dowd American Journal of Epidemiology 2011;174(8):977-983
• Review of Epidemiology and the People's Health. Theory and Context
  Anthony J. McMichael review of Nancy Krieger's book Epidemiology and the People's Health: Theory and Context International Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 40, Issue 4, 1 August 2011, Pages 1130–1132, https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyr075 Nancy Krieger has played a central role in the development of ideas about social and cultural influences on population health, and in exploring the role of ‘theory’ in epidemiology. Many readers will recall her seminal question (1994) about the ‘web of causation’—has anyone seen the spider?1 Now she has written a large, well-structured, critically argued and exhaustively referenced book, the culmination of two decades of her wrestling with and writing about the fundamental questions: Does epidemiologic theory exist; if not, should it exist; and what form should it take?
• Reviews Of Medical Studies May Be Tainted By Funders' Influence
  Richard Harris, All Things Considered, NPR, Oct. 12, 2016 In a recent study on the subject, titled "The Mass Production of Redundant, Misleading, and Conflicted Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses," John Ioannidis chose as an example studies involving antidepressant drugs. "There are 185 of them published in the literature within seven years, which means about 25 of them published every year for the very same drugs and the very same indication, major depression," Ioannidis said.
• Sandro Galea - The social in context: On rational directions in quantitative population health science
  John Cassel Distinguished Lecture, Department of Epidemiology, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health Presented by Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, Dean and Robert A. Knox Professor, Boston University School of Public Health April 20, 2016, at Tate-Turner-Kuralt, UNC School of Social Work, Chapel Hill, NC. Introduction by Andrew Olshan, Professor and Chair, UNC Department of Epidemiology.
• Using race and ethnicity in population research
  IAPHS (Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science) blog, 2020-2021
• Wait ... Isn't All Epidemiology Social Justice?
  A zine of collected thoughts and visions about possibilities for our discipline. From the UNC-CH Epidemiology and Justice Student Group. Vol. 1, fall 2019.
• z-For additional items see other folder
• See epidemiolog.net for additional resources and tools