HMB342H1 Lecture : Summary of lecture notes
Document Summary
Hmb342his lecture 1, jan. 11, 2011: introduction & abnormality. Epidemiology: the study of patterns of health & disease in human populations. Clinical epidemiology: patients in a clinical setting, defined medically. Evidence-based medicine: (sackett) use of clinical epidemiology to generate results to questions that guide clinical practice. Components of an epidemiology study: health outcomes (5d): Dependent: the possible effect or outcome variable; influenced by the independent and covariables. Co-variables: other variables measured that may impact the relationship between dependent & independent variables. (e. g. age, sex, height) Bias: a process at any stage of study that produces sample results that is different from population results. Selection: the patient groups differ on a factor other than the predictor of interest. Measurement: measurement methods between the 2 patient groups are not the same. Confounding: a variable that is related to both the predictor and the outcome but impacts the outcome. (e. g. smoking is related to coffee drinking and impacts lung cancer rates).