Veterinary Epidemiologic Research

This is an extremely ambitious text that considerably extends the scope of material covered by other epidemiological texts. The goal of the authors is to provide a focus on both design and analytical issues in epidemiology. The text is directed at a postgraduate student level, but there is much that is pertinent to undergraduates and ample for to those interested in epidemiology, study design and data analysis. There are 28 Chapters which include an Introduction and Causal Concepts, Sampling, Questionaire Design, Measures of Disease Frequency, Screening and Diagnostic Tests and Measures of Association. Chapters on study design include an Introduction to Observational Studies, Cohort Studies, Case-Control Studies, Hybrid Study Designs, Controlled Trials and Validity in Observational Studies. The analytical chapters are extensive and cover Confounding Bias, Analytic Control and Matching, Linear Regression, Logistic Regression, and Modelling Multinomial Data, Count and Rate Data and Survival Data. There are chapters on clustered data and the methods for modelling these, including mixed models and Bayesian analysis. There are chapters on Meta-analysis, and approaches to model building and data analysis. While other texts provide more depth on all these topics, relevant texts are referenced. Strengths of this book are the examples provided and the appropriateness and currency of the references to which readers are directed. Many of the case examples and data sets are derived from recent published papers or obtained from the authors of the papers.