Just published: The IEA Dictionary of Epidemiology, 6th edition

UPDATE: The new edition of A Dictionary of Epidemiology has just been published by Oxford University Press (OUP):

Please visit any of the following sites or your usual bookstore.

• OUP USA
• OUP UK
• Amazon
• Barnes &Noble
• Google preview

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Oxford University Press has announced that the new, 6th. edition of the IEA Dictionary of Epidemiology will be published next June.

Like the past, 5th. edition, the book has been edited for the International Epidemiological Association by Miquel Porta, who was selected by the IEA Council to succeed the editor of the first four editions, John M. Last (now Emeritus Professor at the University of Ottawa). This time there are four Associate Editors: John Last himself, Sander Greenland (UCLA), Miguel A. Hernán (Harvard), and Isabel dos Santos Silva (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine). The Assistant Editor has been Andrea Burón, presently at the University of Oxford. As always, there are numerous ...

Results of the Council Elections 2014-2017

For the last few weeks we have been holding the triennial IEA elections. We had votes from 728 members (a little less than half of the current membership).

Our congratulations to Valerie Beral who has been elected President, Enrique Barros who has been elected unopposed as President-elect, Vinod Srivastava who has been elected unopposed as Secretary, and Lorenzo Richiardi who has been elected as Treasurer, as well as to the successful regional candidates.

We would also like to thank all of the candidates for putting themselves forward to work for the IEA and to promote epidemiology globally.

The full list of elected candidates is as follows:

• President – Valerie Beral
• President-elect – Enrique Barros
• Secretary – Vinod Srivastava
• Treasurer – Lorenzo Richiardi
• Africa – Newton Kumwenda
• Eastern Mediterranean – Salim Adib
• Europe – Elisabete Weiderpass
• Latin American & Caribbean – Rita Barradas
• North America – Nancy Krieger
• South East Asia – Umesh Kapil
• Western Pacific – Anthony LaMontagna

Finally, a special thanks to our nominations ...

P-values – in Nature (Regina Nuzzo. Scientific method: statistical errors. Nature, 12 February 2014; 506: 150-52)

Most epidemiologists are aware of some of the problems with P-values; they combine both effect size and sample size, they are not easy to interpret, in most studies they really have no meaning and in many cases they are simply grossly misleading causing mistakes that can be serious. Misinterpretation of P values has probably led to some of the most frequent and serious iatrogenic mistakes. Thousands, probably millions, have suffered from misinterpretations of the P-value. How does this arise? ‘Overlooking valuable treatment or risky exposures because the results were not statistically significant is not the fault of the p-value itself, but is a common problem that arises out of the use of p-values without adequate thought and scrutiny by scientific authors, peer reviewers and editors’, as stated our BLOG from December 2009. The main problem is taking ...

The reform of the EU legal framework for the protection of personal data

In January 2012, the EU Commission  published a proposal that would have allowed the use of identifiable personal data for scientific purposes. This is restricted, under the current EU directive of 1995, by the obligation to obtain the consent of every data subject. Since then, more than 3000 amendments were proposed.

In October 2013, the Committee for Civil Liberties Justice and Home Affairs of the EU Parliament (LIBE) passed a “compromise proposal” that makes amendments to the Commission’s proposal. Some of these amendments could impede the advancement of public health research and epidemiology. Articles 81 and 83 are particularly problematic. They limit use of personal health data without explicit informed consent only to cases of “high public interest,” and thus large areas of epidemiological research virtually impossible.

The Council, the third body of the EU, must agree upon a common proposal with ...