Foundations of Epidemiology has been widely used as an introductory text in a broad range of epidemiology courses. Minimal familiariy with statistics is assumed in the book; an appendix provides an overview of the statistics necessary to understand epidemologic concepts, including sampling, significance testing, confidence intervals, correlation and linear regression, relative risk, attributable fraction, likfe table methods and Cohen's Kappa statistic.
The text gives lucid, well organized explantations of basic epidemiologic concepts such as rates and ratios, age-adjustment. incubation periods, ivestigation of an outbreak, time-place-and-person, agent-host-environment, surveillance, screening, sensitivity, spcificity, predictive value, inter-and intra
observer. variability, odds ratios, randomized trials, and cohort and case-control study designs. These discussions are illustrated with examples for a variety of conditions, including asthma, food poisoning, coronary heart disease, measles, stroke, lung cancer, ovarian cancer, breast cancer, venous thrombosis, histoplasmosis, Lyme disease, and AIDS.

For the third edition, the authors have thoroughly revised the entire text. They have modernized the terminology, added many fresh examples and study problems, and refined the presentation of basic concepts to keep it in line with modern thinking.