Clinical Epidemiology – a fast new way to publish important research

When starting a new journal, Clinical Epidemiology, it is important to defi ne some key concepts, our mission, and to delineate our discipline. The classic concept of epidemiology is an old discipline with centuries-old roots. It is a discipline of central importance for public health and its impact for clinical medicine has increased over the last few decades. 1 Epidemiology can thus be broadly divided into population and clinical epidemiology. Population epidemiology deals with the variation in disease occurrence and reasons for this variation. 2 The description of the variation is the subject of descriptive epidemiology and the study of the causes or correlates of this variation is the subject of analytical epidemiology. 3 Population epidemiology is a core tool for disease prevention and is central to public health. Clinical epidemiology, which deals with patients in a broad sense, can be divided into a descriptive and an analytic part. The descriptive part focuses on the variation of clinical prognosis, while the analytical part focuses on the reasons for this variation. The main predictors for the prognosis – diagnosis and treatment – are thus key concepts in clinical epidemiology and the practice of clinical medicine. 3–5 Whereas much of population epidemiology is directed towards the general population, clinical epidemiology is more focused on the individual. Notably, there are several other ways of classifying epidemiology: for example, according to the disease under study (eg, cardiovascular cancer and psychiatric epidemiology) or according to the exposure of interest (eg, pharmacoepidemiology, environmental epidemiology, occupational epidemiology). These classifi cations naturally cover both population and clinical aspects of epidemiology. There is, of course, a substantial overlap between population epidemiology and clinical epidemiology. The two subdisciplines share methods; clinical epidemiology benefi ts in particular from the impressive developments in the areas of study design and analysis achieved within general epidemiology over the last 40 years. 1 In 1938, Paul used the term clinical epidemiology for the fi rst time and defi ned it as a new basic science for preventive medicine, 6 but Paul's description does not entirely cover the modern description of clinical epidemiology, which concepts have been developed since the mid-1960s in particular, by Sackett, Feinstein, the Fletchers, and Weiss. 3,4,7,8 Clinical epidemiology interfaces with many other areas. Thus, practical application of clinical epidemiology is a key part of evidence-based medicine and clinical decision making. In recent years, clinical epidemiology has become important for the health …