Monitoring the Health of Populations : Statistical Principles and Methods for Public Health Surveillance

Public health faces critical challenges ranging from outbreaks of new and old pathogens to the threat of bioterrorism and the impact of lifestyle and environmental changes on health. Modern tools of health surveillance and sound statistical practices are essential for meeting these challenges and providing accurate warnings about real public health threats without wasting resources on false alarms. Advances in statistical techniques, computing power and the Internet have led to many new approaches to monitoring population health, analyzing the data, and rapidly sharing it. This text explores the critical issues in the statistical analysis and interpretation of public health surveillance data. It covers statistical methods for detecting disease outbreaks and clusters, the use of survey methods, interpreting time trends and geographic patterns, exploratory statistical analysis of surveillance data, and web-based health reporting systems for the rapid detection of public health problems, among other topics. The methodological approaches are illustrated in discussions of several current public health issues, including the HIV/AIDS epidemic, anthrax, health effects of particulate air pollution, and trends in prostate cancer. The methods are broadly applicable to surveillance systems and registries for numerous health conditions, e.g. infectious diseases, chronic diseases, adverse drug reactions. The book provides numerous illustrations, worked examples, and practical information for actually implementing the methods. It will serve as a reference for public health practitioners and as a textbook for courses on disease surveillance taken by students of statistics biostatistics, epidemiology or public health. 0195146492......Page 1 Contents......Page 14 Contributors......Page 16 1. Public Health Surveillance in Action: A Framework......Page 20 2. The Use of Surveys in Public Health Surveillance: Monitoring High-Risk Populations......Page 56 3. Exploring Temporal and Spatial Patterns in Public Health Surveillance Data......Page 90 4. Temporal Factors in Public Health Surveillance: Sorting Out Age, Period, and Cohort Effects......Page 118 5. Temporal Factors in Epidemics: The Role of the Incubation Period......Page 146 6. Using Public Health Data to Evaluate Screening Programs: Application to Prostate Cancer......Page 166 7. Detecting Disease Clustering in Time or Space......Page 186 8. Outbreak Detection: Application to Infectious Disease Surveillance......Page 222 9. On-line Monitoring of Public Health Surveillance Data......Page 252 10. Bayesian Hierarchical Modeling of Public Health Surveillance Data: A Case Study of Air Pollution and Mortality......Page 286 11. Some Considerations in Spatial-Temporal Analysis of Public Health Surveillance Data......Page 308 12. Ecologic Inference Problems in the Analysis of Surveillance Data......Page 334 13. Completeness of Reporting: Capture-Recapture Methods in Public Health Surveillance......Page 360 A......Page 380 C......Page 381 E......Page 382 I......Page 383 N......Page 384 O......Page 385 S......Page 386 T......Page 388 Y......Page 389

This is a rigorous, systematic introduction to the basic concepts and practical tools of epidemiologic research. It is aimed at readers who will be conducting epidemiologic studies themselves or who need a firm grasp of epidemiologic principles in order to interpret and evaluate studies conducted by others.
Besides offering clear descriptions of key concepts, the book is rich with examples illustrating how these concepts are applied. Some examples are drawn from classic studies in the field—the work of Snow, Semmelweis, Goldberger, Doll and Hill, and others—while many others concern modern-day epidemiologic studies of problems of current public health importance. Almost every chapter includes a set of exercises (with answers) to help students gain practice in applying new ideas and techniques.
The book's chapters are organized around three main themes: general concepts and methods of epidemiology; major study designs; and evaluating policies and programs. Collectively, these topics form the core material for a graduate-level course or course sequence in epidemiologic methods. Both authors are experienced epidemiologic researchers and have won multiple awards for effective teaching.

Advances in statistical techniques, computing power and the Internet have led to an explosion of new approaches to monitoring population health, analyzing the data, and rapidly sharing it. This text explores the critical issues in the statistical analysis and interpretations of health surveillance data. This text explores the critical issues in the statistical analysis and interpretation of public health surveillance data. It covers statistical methods for detecting disease outbreaks and clusters, the use of survey methods and interpreting time trends and geographic patterns, among other topics This is a rigorous introduction to the concepts and tools of epidemiologic research. It offers clear descriptions of key concepts, rich examples, and instructive exercises (with answers). The book is well-suited for use in graduate-level courses on epidemiologic methods. This is an introduction to the basic concepts and practical tools of epidemiologic research. This book offers descriptions of key concepts and examples illustrating how these concepts are applied. Some examples are drawn from classic studies in the field On February 14, 1941, a Boston pediatrician named Dr. Stewart Clifford was making a routine house call on one of his patients, a baby girl then about three months old.