Description

This book of “Pharmacoepidemiology: Principles and techniques” is designed primarily for undergraduate, professional educational experiences with students and practicing pharmacists. The concepts and methods of pharmacoepidemiology are also of value to other health professionals, public health workers, members of pharmaceutical industry, and anyone who is interested in an introductory review of pharmacoepidemiology. Epidemiology has not been as accessible for undergraduate and professional students. There are currently very few instances of required pharmacoepidemiology coursework in the curricula of American colleges of pharmacy. Public health courses, once required in the pharmaceutical curricula up through the 1970s, are no longer available to most student pharmacists. This makes it difficult to introduce epidemiology, the scientific method of public health, without a basis in public health. The first two chapters, then, are an attempt to provide the reader with a sense of the foundation of epidemiology in public health, through the study of populations, in which health problems are identified, assessed, and prevented or resolved.