Pharmaco-epidemiology Definitions
The first definition below is an excerpt are extracted from the Dictionary of Pharmaco-epidemiology by Bernard Bégaud (3rd edition - 1998 ARME, Pharmacovigilance Editions).
Drug
“any substance or compound, assumed to have curative or preventive properties with regard to human or animal diseases, as well as any product given to man or animal in order to establish a medical diagnosis, to restore, correct or modify their organic functions” (L.511 article of the "Public Health Code").
Are thus considered as drugs, not only the substances or compounds intended to treat a disease or a symptom but also vaccines, products of contrast and other agents used to establish a diagnosis, aqueous solutions of perfusion, blood derivative products, oral contraceptives...
Epidemiology
“study of the existing relationship between diseases or any other biological phenomenon and various factors (way of life, environmental or social conditions, individual characteristics) likely to exert an influence on their frequency, their distribution, their evolution” (Robert dictionary).
- The descriptive epidemiology aims at describing a population (for example, its health or its characteristics),
- The analytical epidemiology aims at studying the associations (causal or not) potentially existing within a population between which has theoccurrence of an event and a characteristic (for example, the exposure to a risk factor).
Pharmaco-epidemiology
Study applying the methods and/or the epidemiologic approach to evaluate, generally on large populations, the effectiveness, the risk and the use of drugs.
Even if experimental studies appear to be sometimes essential, the pharmaco-epidemiologic approach is generally observational in the sense that its objective is to describe reality such as it is, while avoiding, as much as possible, modify it by the study set up.
This can beapplied as much to descriptive approaches (describing a phenomenon or estimating a risk in the context of reality) as with etiologic approaches (determining up to what point a drug is likely to increase a risk under real conditions of its use).
