Veterinary Epidemiology provides a comprehensive introduction to the role of epidemiology in veterinary medicine.

Veterinary Epidemiology provides:

• Completely revised and expanded chapters
• Increased attention given to the principles and concepts of epidemiology, surveillance, and many diagnostic-test validation and performance
• Many examples are drawn from both large and small animal medicine, and from the developing as well as the developed world
• A section on risk analysis

Contents

The Development of Veterinary Medicine

• Historical Perspective
• Contemporary Veterinary Medicine

The Scope of Epidemiology

• The Uses of Epidemiology
• Types of Epidemiological Investigation
• Components of Epidemiology
• Epidemiology's Locale

Causality

• Philosophical Background
• Causal Inference
• Methods of Acceptance of Hypotheses
• Koch's Postulates
• Evans' Rules
• Variables
• Types of Association
• Causal Models
• Formulating a Causal Hypothesis

Describing Disease Occurrence

• The Structure of Animal Populations
• Measures of Disease Occurrence
• Mapping

Determinants of Disease

• Host Determinants
• Agent Determinants
• Environmental Determinants
• Inteaction

The Transmission and Maintenance of Infection

• Horizontal Transmission
• Vertical Transmission
• Maintenance of Infection

The Ecology of Disease

• Basic Ecological Concepts
• Landscape Epidemiology

Patterns of Disease

• Epidemic Curves
• Trends in the Temporal Distribution of Disease
• Trends in the Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Disease

The Nature of Data

• Classification of Data
• Data Elements
• Representation of Data: Coding

Surveillance

• Some Basic Definitions and Principles
• Sources of Data
• Mechanisms of Surveillance
• Surveillance in Developing Countries: Participatory Epidemiology

Data Collection and Management

• Data Collection
• Data Storage
• Data Management
• Veterinary Recording Schemes

Presenting Numerical Data

• Some Basic Definitions
• Some Descriptive Statistics
• Statistical Distributions
• Estimation of Confidence Intervals
• Displaying Numerical Data

Surveys

• Sampling: Some Basic Concepts
• Types of Sampling
• What Sample Size Should be Selected?
• Calculation of Confidence Intervals

Demonstrating Association

• Some Basic Principles
• Interval and Ratio Data: Comparing Means
• Ordinal Data: Comparing Medians
• Nominal Data: Comparing Proportions
• Correlation
• Multivariate Analysis
• Statistical Packages

Observational Studies

• Types of Observational Study
• Measures of Association
• Interaction
• Bias
• What Sample Size Should be Selected?
• Calculating the Power of a Study
• Multivariate Techniques

Clinical Trails

• Design, Conduct and Analysis
• Meta-Analysis

Diagnostic Testing

• Assaying Antibodies
• Serological Estimations and Comparisions in Populations
• Interpreting Serological Tests
• Evaluation and Interpretation of Diagnostic Tests
• Practical Application of Diagnostic Tests

Comparative Epidemiology

• Cancer
• Some Other Diseases
• Reasoning in Comparative Studies

Modeling

• Modelling Approaches
• The Rational Basis of Modelling for Active Disease Control

The Economics of Animal Disease

• Economic Concepts and Principles
• Assessing the Economic Costs of Disease
• Cost-Benefit Analysis of Disease Control

Health Schemes

• Private Health and Productivity Schemes
• Companion-animal Schemes

The Control and Eradication of Disease

• Outbreak Investigation
• Veterinary Medicine in the 21st Century

Appendices

Index

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