Main description:

Over the past fifty years, the case-control method, and to a lesser extent its case-based variants, have become the most important tools for the investigator of health problems. The case control method is the study of persons with the disease and a suitable control group of persons who do not have the disease. The book helps readers address a number of general and specific questions dealing with the case-control and other case-based methods, including questions of
how to design and implement a case-control study that minimizes biases, how to analyze the data to appropriately deal with confounding variables and help identify reactions, and how to interpret data and present the results from a case-control study.

Contents:

1. From Case Investigation to the Case-Control Method ; 2. Problem Investigation and Inferences Using the Case-Control Method ; 3. Avoiding Bias in Case and Control Selection ; 4. Avoiding Information Bias in Exposure Assessment ; 5. Alternative Case-Based Designs ; 6. Analysis of Case-Control Data ; 7. Applications: Outbreak Investigation ; 8. Genetic Epidemiology for Case-Based Designs ; 9. Applications: Evaluation ; 10. Applications: Evaluation of Screening Programs ; 11. Other Applications