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Pharmacoepidemiological Approaches in Health Care

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Pharmacy Practice Research Methods

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Abstract

Pharmacoepidemiology studies patterns of medicines use—also known as drug utilization research—which is an important component of pharmacy practice research. Pharmacoepidemiology also studies the relationship between treatment or exposure and outcomes in large populations under nonexperimental situations over time. This chapter provides an introduction to pharmacoepidemiology. It discusses the key concepts involved in studying the association between medicines and outcomes. These include forming a research question, considering sources of data, defining the study population, and defining drug exposures and outcomes. This chapter also discusses a range of study designs used in pharmacoepidemiological research including cohort studies, case-control design, within-subject methods, cross-sectional studies, ecological studies, and quasi-experimental designs. Frequently used metrics to understand drug utilization and medication adherence are also introduced. This chapter also draws on key challenges such as selection bias as well as commonly used analytical techniques to overcome these challenges.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, 133 Brookline Ave., 6th Floor, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    Christine Y. Lu

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  1. Christine Y. Lu
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Correspondence to Christine Y. Lu .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Zaheer-Ud-Din Babar

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Lu, C.Y. (2015). Pharmacoepidemiological Approaches in Health Care. In: Babar, ZUD. (eds) Pharmacy Practice Research Methods. Adis, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14672-0_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14672-0_11

  • Publisher Name: Adis, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-14671-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-14672-0

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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