Essentials of Epidemiology in Public Health, Second Edition

This was a required text for a graduate intro to epidemiology course that I took, and I've held on to it since then. Overall the content is well organized and clearly written. That being said, there were also a few important sections that I found very confusing, and there do appear to be at least a few errors in text and arithmetic. The authors are generally fairly concise in their descriptions of types of studies, sources of error, etc., which makes for good overall readability, however I often wished they would give a few more details and examples. In spite of these criticisms, I've looked through a lot of epidemiology books, and they all seem to have limitations. It's probably impossible to identify one introductory text that will be the best choice for everyone. No matter which one you pick up, you will likely benefit from having another one on hand for comparison when a passage or problem is unclear, confusing or underemphasized. In my opinion this book is an excellent choice for those with a general interest in epidemiology for public health practice and who are looking for good readability. I've found that it also serves as a good basic reference on epidemiological studies.

The book is very helpful. The layout does not make for easy reading. The book would be much better with good visuals and less chunky paragraph style writing - the virtues of bullet points especially during pre-exam reading.

a little slow in shipping but GREAT book. very clear explanation in good logic.

This book is an excellent introduction to epidemiology. The authors present epidemiologic concepts in an easy-to-understand manner with interesting supportive examples from the fields of reproductive health and HIV epidemiology. In addition to the standard chapters on study design, bias, and confounding, the book also includes very good chapters on measurement error, causation, and screening, as well as tried-and-proven guidelines for a critical review of epidemiologic studies. This text should be very helpful to beginning masters and doctoral students in epidemiology and public health.