SUPPLEMENTAL READING MATERIAL
(Click here for advanced and topic-specific books)
Supplemental Books
The Aschengrau et al book is an excellent introduction to epidemiology. It covers most of the core conceptual issues and includes some intermediate level discussion on study designs. It has a wide coverage and should provide a solid foundation for the rest of the course. You should also find this book useful to assist in mastering much of the intermediate level material we will be covering. The approach and terminology used in the book are very close to those which we will be using. The main omission is any discussion about outbreak investigation.
The book by Szklo and Nieto is a good intermediate level text which I am recommending that you buy as a second textbook for this course. It focuses on methodology and analysis but has excellent material on study implementation which is missing in most other textbooks. It does not cover much about infectious diseases, outbreak investigation nor applications to pubic health or clinical medicine. And, it can be a bit ‘quirky’ at times.
As you progress into the epidemiological research fields, you should be looking for additional reading material. In addition to the EPI 5240 textbooks, you could consider buying at least one additional (intermediate level) textbook. There is no single intermediate level book which is ‘best’. They have different orientations (e.g. methodology vs. practical; public health vs. clinical) and have varying levels of coverage. Many students still find the book by Hennekens et al to be provide the best combination, although it has a strong clinical orientation (which won’t satisfy all students) and was published in 1987 (meaning that many of the examples are dated). The new introductory book by Rothman also appears excellent, especially for analytic epidemiological designs. It would be recommended for the sessions on study design and biases:
Hennekens CH, Busing JE. Epidemiology in Medicine. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1987.
Rothman KJ. Epidemiology: An Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2002.
Students who will be progressing on to advanced study in Epidemiology would benefit from buying a copy of the following book by Rothman and Greenland. Note however, that this book is quite advanced and requires a good statistical background to understand some chapters.
Rothman KJ, Greenland S. Modern Epidemiology, 3rd edition. Lippincott-Raven,
Philadelphia, 2008 (ISBN-13: 978-0781755641).
The course will address some topics which are not well covered in the recommended text books. A lot of this material will be taken from published papers. A binder containing these readings will be available from the Epidemiology departmental office.
Advanced and Topic Specific Books
It is important to read other books to develop a perspective on how various authors view the field of Epidemiology. There are a large number of other books available on this subject, and the number grows by at least three or four good books each year. It used to be possible to provide a fairly complete list of all epidemiology books of relevance. But, not any more.
We have a separate web page which provides a range of useful books which you might explore during your MSc studies. Don't think that you are expected to read all of these books. But, if you are going to working in a specialized area (e.g. injury epidemiology) or are interested to learn about an area, one of these books may serve you well. Most of these books can be bought at amazon.ca or chapters.ca
