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European Journal of Epidemiology
Published in: European Journal of Epidemiology 12/2020

Open Access 01-12-2020 | COMMENTARY

Epidemiology is about disease in populations

Author: Anders Ahlbom

Published in: European Journal of Epidemiology | Issue 12/2020

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Excerpt

Dekkers and Mulder argue convincingly that it is not possible to predict with certainty whether a given person will develop a disease or not during a specified period of time [1]. This may serve as a reminder that epidemiology is about disease in populations, rather than in individuals or patients. This editorial has to credos: First, the intrinsic core of epidemiology is that it relates cases of disease to a source population observed during a period of time, and second, epidemiology entails both subject matter knowledge and methods to generate such knowledge. …
Literature
1.
Dekkers O, Mulder J. When will individuals meet their personalized probabilities? A philosophical note on risk prediction. Eur J Epdiemiol.
2.
MacMahon B, Pugh T. Epidemiologic methods. Boston: Little, Brown; 1970.
3.
Rothman KJ, Greenland S, Lash TL. Modern epidemiology. 3rd ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2008.
4.
Pearce N, Lawlor DA, Brickley EB. Comparisons between countries are essential for the control of COVID-19. Int J Epidemiol. 2020;49:1059–62.CrossRef
Metadata
Title
Epidemiology is about disease in populations
Author
Anders Ahlbom
Publication date
01-12-2020
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
European Journal of Epidemiology / Issue 12/2020
Print ISSN: 0393-2990
Electronic ISSN: 1573-7284
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-020-00701-9

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