Epidemiology

Much of our understanding of occupational lung disease comes from epidemiology, and both field and analytical methodology have improved over the past 30 yrs. Some questions are best answered by epidemiology, rather than other disciplines. The design should include consideration of time and population in the three basic epidemiological designs: longitudinal, case- referent, and cross-sectional studies. Attention to measurement in epidemiology will improve the data quality. The interpretation of results involves consideration of the strengths and weaknesses of the particular study and also the wider context of the research