Case Studies in Forensic Epidemiology

Epidemiology has often been defined as the study of the distribution of disease, together with the distribution of factors that may modify that risk of disease. As such, epidemiology has often been reduced to a methodology only, providing a mechanism for the study of disease that is somehow removed, separate and apart from the populations that serve as its focus. Epidemiology, however, is much more than that. The discipline p- vides a way of perceiving and knowing the world, and of relating to the c- munities whose health and disease patterns we are trying to understand.

Epidemiology has often been defined as the study of the distribution of disease, together with the distribution of factors that may modify that risk of disease. As such, epidemiology has often been reduced to a methodology only, providing a mechanism for the study of disease that is somehow removed, separate and apart from the populations that serve as its focus. Epidemiology, however, is much more than that. The discipline p- vides a way of perceiving and knowing the world, and of relating to the c- munities whose health and disease patterns we are trying to understand.