An Epidemiology Primer: Bridging the Gap between Epidemiology and Psychology.

The objective of this study was to examine the methods commonly employed in epidemiologic and biomedical research and to relate them to the methods traditionally used in the field of psychology. The intent of this report is to describe some of these methods and explain them in a clear and concise fashion. It is concluded that, despite the differences in terminology and frequent use of rates which are not found in psychology, the gap between biostatistics and psychological statistics is neither large nor complex. Because the methods of epidemiology, biostatistics, and psychology are based on common statistical principles, relatively few shifts in statistical thinking are required, other than an understanding of the terminology employed, for psychologists to attain a basic comprehension of epidemiologic findings.