Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Introduction to Epidemiologic Thinking -- 2. What Is Causation? -- 3. Measuring Disease Occurrence and Causal Effects -- 4. Types of Epidemiologic Study -- 5. Biases in Study Design -- 6. Random Error and the Role of Statistics -- 7. Analyzing Simple Epidemiologic Data -- 8. Controlling Confounding by Stratifying Data -- 9. Measuring Interactions -- 10. Using Regression Models in Epidemiologic Analysis -- 11. Epidemiology in Clinical Settings. Begins with a brief, lucid discussion of casual thinking and causal inference and then takes the reader through the elements of epidemiology, focusing on the measures of disease occurrence and causal effects. With these building blocks in place, the reader learns how to design, analyze, and interpret epidemiologic research studies, and how to deal with the fundamental problems that epidemiologists face, including confounding, the role of chance, and the exploration of interactions. All these topics are layered on the foundation of basic principles presented in simple language, with numerous examples and questions for further thought.