Practical Clinical Epidemiology for the Veterinarian provides thorough coverage of the fundamentals of epidemiological concepts, situated within the context of daily clinical practice.
• Examines epidemiology from the lens of daily clinical practice to offer a truly practical approach
• Demonstrates the relevance of epidemiology to clinical problems faced in the field using practical examples to clarify the concepts
• Includes clinical cases from all species, with an emphasis on small animal and equine medicine, to demonstrate the concepts
• Uses an easy-to-read approach, with graphs, flowcharts, and tables to promote understanding
• Includes access to a companion website with exercises for study and review
Throughout this book, you will notice the use of the terms “disease” and “condition” interchangeably. This is because the same epidemiological methods can be used to determine the risk of a disease such as lameness or a condition such as twin pregnancies in mares, which is not a disease per se but a problem. Other “conditions” that can be studied with the same epidemiological methods are not problems but positive outcomes such as “cure,” “positive response to a treatment,” or “extended life,” as happens with cancer treatments.
The book starts by describing the most common measurements of disease and some of the most commonly used terms in epidemiology in Chapters 1 and 2. There is a minimal part on statistics, simply to point out what are the appropriate statistical tests to be used. These tests are not explained and there are no formulas; for that you need to look into statistics books.
The book continues in Chapter 3 with what I consider to be the most important part of the book: how to read and interpret research papers. Research papers are the “point of the spear” for new knowledge; however, just because something is published does not mean that it is good work, accurate, or true. My hope is that after applying the knowledge in this chapter, you will realize that you can determine whether a study warrants the conclusions that are published or not and whether you can use that information to help your patients. Chapter 4 covers in a simple straightforward manner examples of the different epidemiologic study designs to show the pros and cons, as well as the information obtained from each.
This book is intended to provide concise and straightforward information on how to apply epidemiological concepts in daily practice. Only the most necessary formulas and calculations will be presented, with real‐life examples from all animal species, but especially focused on companion animals.
