Environmental Health Science Student Forum

Lecture on EPIDEMIOLOGY
Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in defined populations.

It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidence-based practice by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive healthcare.
Epidemiologists help with study design, collection, and statistical analysis of data, amend interpretation and dissemination of results (including peer review and occasional systematic review). Epidemiology has helped develop methodology used in clinical research, public health studies, and, to a lesser extent, basic research in the biological sciences.

Major areas of epidemiological study include disease causation,
transmission,
outbreak investigation,
disease surveillance ,
environmental epidemiology,
forensic epidemiology,
occupational epidemiology,
screening,
biomonitoring, and comparisons of treatment effects such as in clinical trials. Epidemiologists rely on other scientific disciplines like biology to better understand disease processes, statistics to make efficient use of the data and draw appropriate conclusions, social sciences to better understand proximate and distal causes, andengineering for exposure assessment.

The Toxicology and Environmental Health Information Program (TEHIP)
is a comprehensive toxicology and environmental health web site, that includes open access to resources produced by US government agencies and organizations, and is maintained under the umbrella of the Specialized Information Service at the United States National Library of Medicine. TEHIP includes links to technical databases, bibliographies, tutorials, and consumer-oriented resources. TEHIP is responsible for the Toxicology Data Network (TOXNET),an integrated system of toxicology and environmental health databases including the Hazardous Substances Data Bank, that are open access,
i.e. available free of charge.

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SCIENCE STUDENT FORUM