Includes bibliographical references and index

Epidemiology is ... -- How long is a piece of string? : measuring disease frequency -- Who, what, where and when? : descriptive epidemiology -- Healthy research : study designs for public health -- Why? : linking exposure and disease -- Heads or tails : the role of chance -- All that glitters is not gold : the problem of error -- Muddied waters : the challenge of confounding -- Reading between the lines : reading and writing epidemiological papers -- Who sank the boat? : association and causation -- Assembling the building blocks : reviews and their uses -- Surveillance : collecting health-related data for epidemiological intelligence and public health action / Martyn Kirk and Adrian Sleigh -- Outbreaks, epidemics, and clusters / Martyn Kirk and Adrian Sleigh -- Prevention : better than cure? -- Early detection : what benefits at what cost? -- Epidemiology and the publicʹs health

"Taking a practical approach and supported by global examples from all areas of health, the new edition of this popular and highly commended textbook has been updated to reflect current epidemiological thinking and teaching. Based on feedback from teachers and students, material has been reordered to better suit courses and reflect the underlying logic and purpose of epidemiology." -- Publisher