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Rates, Risks, Measures of Association and Impact

  • Chapter
Handbook of Epidemiology

Abstract

A major aim of epidemiologic research is to measure disease occurrence in relation to various characteristics such as exposure to environmental, occupational, or lifestyle risk factors, genetic traits or other features. In this chapter, various measures will be considered that quantify disease occurrence, associations between disease occurrence and these characteristics as well as their consequences in terms both of disease risk and impact at the population level. As is common practice, the generic term exposure will be used throughout the chapter to denote such characteristics. Emphasis will be placed on measures based on occurrence of new disease cases, referred to as disease incidence. Measures based on disease prevalence, i. e., considering newly occurring and previously existing disease cases as a whole will be considered more briefly.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biostatistics CHU de Rouen, University of Rouen Medical School and Rouen University Hospital, 1, rue de Germont, 76031, Rouen Cedex, France

    Jacques Benichou

  2. Departments of Population Health Sciences, and Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, University of Wisconsin, 610 Walnut St., Madison, WI, 53726, USA

    Mari Palta

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  1. Jacques Benichou
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  2. Mari Palta
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Epidemiological Methods and Ethiologic Research, Bremen Institute for Prevention Research and Social Medicine (BIPS), Linzer Str. 10, 28359, Bremen, Germany

    Wolfgang Ahrens  & Iris Pigeot  & 

  2. Division of Biometrie and Data Management, Bremen Institute for Prevention Research and Social Medicine (BIPS), Linzer Str. 10, 28359, Bremen, Germany

    Wolfgang Ahrens  & Iris Pigeot  & 

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Benichou, J., Palta, M. (2005). Rates, Risks, Measures of Association and Impact. In: Ahrens, W., Pigeot, I. (eds) Handbook of Epidemiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-26577-1_3

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