Asthma Epidemiology: Principles and Methods

✍ Scribed by Neil Pearce, Richard Beasley, Carl Burgess, Julian Crane

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 281
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Asthma prevalence is increasing worldwide, and there is growing concern about the burden of asthma both for patients and for the health sevices. There have also been major changes in the way in which the management of asthma death in some western countries in the 1960's and again in the 1970's. Asthma epidemiology has a major role to play in investigating the causes of these global changes, and in developing preventive interventions. This is the first text on the principles and methods of asthma epidemiology. It describes the types of asthma epidemiology studies, and discusses the strengths and limitations of the various methods of measuring asthma prevalence and asthma morbidity and the major risk factors for asthma, methods of studying the causes of asthma deaths. The book will therefore be of interest not only to epidemiologists, but also to the very large number of respiratory physicians, allergist, and pediatricians who are becoming involved in asthma epidemiology.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 14
Asthma......Page 18
Asthma epidemiology......Page 25
Part I: Basic Principles of Asthma Epidemiology......Page 32
2. Study design options......Page 34
Background......Page 35
Incidence studies......Page 38
Incidence case-control studies......Page 46
Measures of effect in incidence case-control studies......Page 47
Prevalence studies......Page 49
Measures of effect in prevalence studies......Page 50
Prevalence case-control studies......Page 52
Cross-sectional studies......Page 53
Measures of effect in cross-sectional studies......Page 54
Longitudinal studies......Page 55
Summary......Page 59
Precision......Page 64
Validity......Page 67
Effect modification......Page 81
Summary......Page 83
Part II: Asthma Morbidity......Page 88
Introduction......Page 90
General considerations......Page 95
Symptoms......Page 101
Physiological measures......Page 109
Strategies for measuring asthma prevalence......Page 119
Summary......Page 122
Introduction......Page 130
Symptoms......Page 132
Physiological measures......Page 135
Health service and medication usage......Page 138
Quality of life and knowledge of asthma......Page 142
Composite measures......Page 150
Summary......Page 152
General considerations......Page 158
Demographic factors......Page 162
Genetic factors and early life events......Page 163
Atopy......Page 171
Indoor environment......Page 175
Outdoor environment......Page 184
Occupational exposures......Page 191
Other exposures......Page 197
Summary......Page 200
Part III: Asthma Mortality......Page 216
Introduction......Page 218
Assessing the validity of time trends......Page 222
Assessing possible explanations for time trends......Page 227
Summary......Page 236
Background......Page 240
Study design options......Page 241
Case-control studies of asthma deaths......Page 252
Summary......Page 272
B......Page 276
F......Page 277
M......Page 278
P......Page 279
S......Page 280
Y......Page 281