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Chronoepidemiology: Chronobiology and Epidemiology

  • Chapter
Biologic Rhythms in Clinical and Laboratory Medicine

Abstract

Epidemiology as a science is concerned with the occurrence and determinants of diseases in human populations (Lilienfeld and Lilienfeld 1980; Barker 1982). Although epidemiologists are interested in temporal factors relating to the occurrence and clustering of disease, the interest is primarily with the prevalence of disease, that is the number of individuals exhibiting a given disease at a specific time relative to the number of individuals making up the population at that point in time. Too, they are concerned with the incidence rate of a disease, that is the number of cases of a given disease occurring in a population during a span of time in relation to the length of time at which the population is at risk of experiencing the disease. Essentially, prevalence is the proportion of the population that exhibits a particular disease at a certain point in time. Thus, the major concern of epidemiologists regarding the variable of time, per se, is in terms of the time interval used in the denominator, often expressed as “person-years,” “person-time” or “risk-time.” For each individual in the study population the time at risk is that span during which the individual remains free from disease and therefore is at risk to it. Collectively, for a given study group or cohort, the time period of risk represents the summation of disease-free durations (Barker 1982; Ahlbom and Norell 1984).

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Authors
  1. M. H. Smolensky
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculté de Médecine Pitié-Salpétrière, Laboratoire de Biochimie Médicale, 91, Boulevard de l’Hôpital, 75634, Paris Cedex 13, France

    Yvan Touitou (Professor of Biochemistry) (Professor of Biochemistry)

  2. Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Minnesota, 640 Jackson Street, 55101-259, St.Paul, MN, USA

    Erhard Haus (Professor, Chairman) (Professor, Chairman)

  3. Department of Anatomic and Clinical Pathology, St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Center, 640 Jackson Street, 55101-259, St.Paul, MN, USA

    Erhard Haus (Professor, Chairman) (Professor, Chairman)

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Smolensky, M.H. (1992). Chronoepidemiology: Chronobiology and Epidemiology. In: Touitou, Y., Haus, E. (eds) Biologic Rhythms in Clinical and Laboratory Medicine. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-78734-8_46

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-78734-8_46

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