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Epidemiological Methods for Studying Movement Disorders

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Movement Disorders Curricula

Abstract

Understanding why some populations have more movement disorders and what factors predict risk of developing a movement disorder requires an epidemiological and public health approach to disease aetiology and health-care planning. Established methods increase our understanding of both descriptive and aetiological epidemiology but like all research must be undertaken with care and rigour and associations need careful interpretation. Observational studies are particularly prone to a variety of biases that may result in both over- and underestimation of causal effects, and despite sophisticated statistical methods, residual confounding may still remain an issue. Imaginative use of large-scale data-linkage studies can overcome some of these issues. Only population-based studies can truly inform us of whether there are secular time trends and measure the burden of disease in populations to inform the need for disease prevention and provision of appropriate health care.

This chapter will provide a brief overview of epidemiological methods used in observational studies and will mainly use Parkinson’s disease (PD) as the exemplar movement disorder.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol, 39 Whatley Road, Bristol, Avon, BS8 2PS, UK

    Yoav Ben-Shlomo MB, BS, PhD, FFPH

Authors
  1. Yoav Ben-Shlomo MB, BS, PhD, FFPH
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Correspondence to Yoav Ben-Shlomo MB, BS, PhD, FFPH .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Medicine, Transilvania University, Brasov, Romania

    Cristian Falup-Pecurariu

  2. Laboratory of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Faculty of Medicine, Lisbon, Portugal

    Joaquim Ferreira

  3. National Center of Epidemiology and CIBERNED, Carlos III Institute of Health, Madrid, Spain

    Pablo Martinez-Martin

  4. Centre of Excellence, King’s College London, National Parkinson Foundation Centre of Excellence King’s College, London, United Kingdom

    Kallol Ray Chaudhuri

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Ben-Shlomo, Y. (2017). Epidemiological Methods for Studying Movement Disorders. In: Falup-Pecurariu, C., Ferreira, J., Martinez-Martin, P., Chaudhuri, K. (eds) Movement Disorders Curricula. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-1628-9_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-1628-9_3

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Vienna

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-7091-1627-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-7091-1628-9

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