Epidemiology Basics and Beyond


On this page we have composed a repository of available educational publications and presentations concerning epidemiology and biostatistics. We hope this page will help you find the answers to some of your methodological questions. For easy-reference we have grouped the information as follows: With each series of papers and each single paper you will find the e-mail address of the corresponding author that you may use for reprint requests in case you do not have access to the journal itself. The exception to that rule are articles that did not provide such an e-mail address.

Paper series

A variety of medical journals provide interesting series of educational papers. A couple of these are listed below. For easy-reference we have grouped them by journal.

Kidney International

ABC of Epidemiology

A series of articles written by:
» Dekker
» Jager
» Kramar
» Stel
» Tripepi
» Wanner
» Zoccali

British Medical Journal

Statistics notes

The corresponding author contact information is provided under 'extract'.
Access to the full text of a number of these and other papers is provided at the homepage of Martin Bland.

How to read a paper

A series of articles written by:
» Greenhalgh - p.greenhalgh@ucl.ac.uk
» Taylor

Lancet

Epidemiology 2005

A series of articles written by:
» Grimes - dgrimes@fhi.org
» Schulz - KSchulz@fhi.or

Genetic Epidemiology 2005

A series of articles written by:
» Burton - pb51@le.ac.uk
» Cordell - heather.cordell@cimr.cam.ac.uk
» Hattersley - mccarthy@drl.ox.ac.uk
» Hopper - hopper@unimelb.edu.au
» Palmer - palmer@cyllene.uwa.edu.au
» Smith - zetkin@bristol.ac.uk
» Teare - teare@sheffield.ac.uk

Epidemiology 2002

A series of articles written by:
» Grimes - dgrimes@fhi.org
» Schulz - KSchulz@fhi.or

Epidemiology 1993

A series of articles written by:
» Carpenter
» Datta
» Glynn
» Grisso
» Jolley
» Leon
» Mertens
» Sitthi-amorn
» Victora

Journal of the American Medical Association

Users' Guides to Evidence-Based Practice

This website of the Centre for Health Evidence (CHE) provides access to a complete set of Users' Guides originally published as a series in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Single papers

British Medical Journal

Readers guide to critical appraisal of cohort studies: 3. Analytical strategies to reduce confounding.

Normand SL, Sykora K, Li P, Mamdani M, Rochon PA, Anderson GM.; BMJ. 2005 Apr 30;330(7498):1021-1023.
» Anderson - geoff.anderson@utoronto.ca

Reader's guide to critical appraisal of cohort studies: 2. Assessing potential for confounding.

Mamdani M, Sykora K, Li P, Normand SL, Streiner DL, Austin PC, Rochon PA, Anderson GM.; BMJ. 2005 Apr 23;330(7497):960-962.
» Anderson - geoff.anderson@utoronto.ca

Reader's guide to critical appraisal of cohort studies: 1. Role and design.

Rochon PA, Gurwitz JH, Sykora K, Mamdani M, Streiner DL, Garfinkel S, Normand SL, Anderson GM.; BMJ. 2005 Apr 16;330(7496):895-897.
» Anderson - geoff.anderson@utoronto.ca

Evidence based medicine: what it is and what it isn't.

Sackett DL, Rosenberg WM, Gray JA, Haynes RB, Richardson WS.; BMJ. 1996 Jan 13;312(7023):71-72.

Lancet

Time and chance: the stochastic nature of disease causation.

Coggon DI, Martyn CN.; Lancet. 2005 Apr 16-22;365(9468):1434-1437.
» Martyn - cnm@mrc.soton.ac.uk

External validity of randomised controlled trials: "to whom do the results of this trial apply?".

Rothwell PM.; Lancet. 2005 Jan 1-7;365(9453):82-93.
» Rothwell - peter.rothwell@clneuro.ox.ac.uk

When are observational studies as credible as randomised trials?

Vandenbroucke JP.; Lancet. 2004 May 22;363(9422):1728-1731.
» Vandenbroucke - J.P.Vandenbroucke@lumc.nl

Survival plots of time-to-event outcomes in clinical trials: good practice and pitfalls.

Pocock SJ, Clayton TC, Altman DG.; Lancet. 2002 May 11;359(9318):1686-1689.
» Pocock - stuart.pocock@lshtm.ac.uk

Reliable assessment of the effects of treatment on mortality and major morbidity, II: observational studies.

MacMahon S, Collins R.; Lancet. 2001 Feb 10;357(9254):455-462.
» MacMahon - s.macmahon@iih.usyd.edu.au

New England Journal of Medicine

Randomized, controlled trials, observational studies, and the hierarchy of research designs.

Concato J, Shah N, Horwitz RI.; N Engl J Med. 2000 Jun 22;342(25):1887-1892.
» Concato - john.concato@yale.edu

A comparison of observational studies and randomized, controlled trials.

Benson K, Hartz AJ.; N Engl J Med. 2000 Jun 22;342(25):1878-1886.
» Hartz - arthur-hartz@uiowa.edu

American Journal of Kidney Diseases

Study Designs in Patient-Oriented Research

Parikh CR, Concato J.; Am J Kidney Dis. 2006 Feb; 47(2):356-364.
» Parikh - chirag.parikh@yale.edu

Mendelian randomization: a new approach to studying epidemiology in ESRD.

Zoccali C, Testa A, Spoto B, Tripepi G, Mallamaci F.; Am J Kidney Dis. 2006 Feb;47(2):332-341.
» Zoccali - carmine.zoccali@tin.it

Studies of prognostic factors in end-stage renal disease: an epidemiological and statistical critique.

Keough-Ryan T, Hutchinson T, MacGibbon B, Senecal M.; Am J Kidney Dis. 2002 Jun;39(6):1196-1205.
» Keough-Ryan - tammy.keough-ryan@cdha.nshealth.ca

Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology

Cohort Studies: Marching Forward

Thadhani R, Tonelli M.; Clin J Am Soc Nephrol 2006; 1:1117-1123.
» Thadhani - rthadhani@partners.org

Kidney International

Reverse epidemiology of cardiovascular risk factors in maintenance dialysis patients.

Kalantar-Zadeh K, Block G, Humphreys MH, Kopple JD.; Kidney Int. 2003 Mar;63(3):793-808.
» Kalantar-Zadeh - kamkal@ucla.edu

Statistics in medicine

What do we mean by validating a prognostic model?

Altman DG, Royston P.; Stat Med. 2000 Feb 29;19(4):453-473.
» Altman - altman@icrf.icnet.uk

BMC Medical Research Methodology

The CONSORT statement: revised recommendations for improving the quality of reports of parallel group randomized trials.

Moher D, Schulz KF, Altman DG; CONSORT.; BMC Med Res Methodol. 2001;1:2. Epub 2001 Apr 20.
» Moher - dmoher@uottawa.ca

Journal collections

British Medical Journal

Epidemiology for the Uninitiated

A collection of epidemiology notes written by D Coggon, Geoffrey Rose and DJP Barker.

Statistics at Square One

A collection of statistics notes written by TDV Swinscow and revised by MJ Campbell

Presentations

Bias in nephrological Studies : what it is and how to deal with it

Zoccali C., 2006 July 17, Glasgow, Scotland.

Confounding - Stratification and multivariate analysis made simple

Jager KJ., 2006 July 17, Glasgow, Scotland.

What's wrong with correlation analysis?

Dekker FW., 2006 July 17, Glasgow, Scotland.

Causal Effects

Zoccali C., 2005 June 6, Istanbul, Turkey.

Measuring Disease Occurrence

Jager KJ., 2005 June 6, Istanbul, Turkey.

Confounding, Aetiology, and Prognostic models

Dekker FW., 2005 June 6, Istanbul, Turkey.

Diagnostic studies in Nephrology: from design to analysis

Zoccali C., 2004 May 17, Lisbon, Portugal.

Prognostic studies in Nephrology: survival analysis and beyond

Jager KJ., 2004 May 17, Lisbon, Portugal.

Observational Studies

Wanner C., 2004 May 17, Lisbon, Portugal.

Tutorials and workshops on statistical packages

Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Tutorials

SPSS Tutorials provided by the Texas A&M University, Department of Statistics.

Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Workshop

SPSS On-Line Training Workshop provided by the Central Michigan University, Department of Mathematics.

Links

Epidemiology

Chapter 9 from Medical Microbiology 4th ed textbook at US National Center for Biotechnology Information. Plain format at University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.

Evidence-Based Medicine

An overview provided by the Learning and Information Services at the University of Hertfordshire.

Renal Epidemiology Articles

A group of articles assembled by the University of Pennsylvania Health System.