Basic Epidemiologic and Statistical Principles

• Published in: Statistical Methods in Genetic Epidemiology
• Main Author: Thomas, Duncan C.
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY Oxford University Press 29.01.2004; Oxford University Press, Incorporated
• Subjects: Biomathematics and Statistics; Epidemiology & medical statistics; Molecular Biology and Genetics; Public Health; equations; general; chain; aggregation; randomization
• ISBN: 019515939X; 9780195159394
• DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780195159394.003.0004

Throughout this book, we will be relying on a variety of basic epidemiologic concepts and statistical tools that are covered in greater depth in standard textbooks. While it is not essential for the statistical geneticist or genetic epidemiologist to be fully conversant with the mathematical statistics theory underlying these methods, a working knowledge of their use is essential to understand much of what follows. Readers with a strong statistical background can safely skip this chapter, and the applied reader who wishes to delve quickly into the subject might also choose to skip it for now, referring back to it as needed. So that the book can be self-contained, however, the basic tools essential to the material in later chapters are discussed here.