This is an excellent introduction. Raj Bhopal’s approach is conceptual—he describes and explains the underlying concepts and methods of epidemiology with clarity and with apt examples, and simple, elegant illustrations. Frequently throughout the text he asks penetrating questions that will test the limits of his readers’ intellectual capacity—an admirable feature that other authors could copy with benefit to themselves and their readers. All the essentials are here: the person-population dyad, variation, error, bias, confounding, causality, the spectrum of disease, the ‘iceberg’ concept, risk and its relationship to disease frequency, study design, the ethical framework within which we practise epidemiology and conduct research, the relationship of epidemiology to other
scholarly pursuits, and finally, some thoughts about the way the discipline has evolved and is likely to continue to evolve in the lifetime of those now entering upon careers in this field.
http://rapidshare.com/files/76579219/Bho0192631551.rar
