This book is intended to provide a basic introduction to epidemiologic methods and epidemiologic thinking. After reading this book, you should be able to read an epidemiologic study, understand what the authors did and why, and identify what they found. You will also have the tools to assess the quality of that study—how good is the evidence? What are potential sources of bias, and how might those have affected the results? This book will not teach you enough to be able to design and conduct your own epidemiologic studies—that level of understanding requires several years of specialized training. However, being able to read and understand the scientific literature about human health will allow you to apply that understanding to your own work in a nuanced, sophisticated way.

Readers will learn about the nature of health, health education, health promotion and related concepts. This will help to understand the social, psychological and physical components of health.

This textbook provides a contextualized approach to a Western civilization historical survey course, focusing on the modern history of medicine in Europe, North America, and the colonial world from 1700 to the present. The textbook emphasizes how disease classifications and medical and sanitation practices are framed within their social and cultural contexts, and how ideas about bodies, disease, disability, health, and healing have been associated historically with such factors as race and ethnicity, religion, social class, and gender. Some major themes include diverse perspectives and conflicts in the progress and triumph of modern medical science and the identification of historical patterns in modern medical identities, practices, issues and controversies.

The book seeks to develop historical awareness of major events and ideas that have shaped the evolution of Western medical and public health practices in the modern era as well as ideas about disease and disability, and to enhance critical thinking and writing skills to engage in the analysis of historical and contemporary issues.

Chapter files of this book are also available in PDF format in the CSCC Hub.

A History of Western Medicine, Disease and Public Health, vol. 2 (Since 1700) by Dea Boster, Benjamin Pugno at Columbus State Community College is licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA except where otherwise noted.

A History of Western Medicine, Disease and Public Health, vol. 2 (Since 1700) is a textbook providing a contextualized approach to a Western civilization historical survey course, focusing on the modern history of medicine in Europe, North America, and the colonial world from 1700 to the present.

Quantitative Ecology introduces and discusses the principles of ecology from populations to ecosystems including human populations, disease, exotic organisms, habitat fragmentation, biodiversity and global dynamics. The book also reformulates and unifies ecological equations making them more accessible to the reader and easier to teach.