Epidemiology study/prep material recommendations

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

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Hey everyone. I've been trying to do some leisure reading on epi and other public health related topics so I'll hopefully be sort of ahead/prepared for my epi mph in the fall.

Are there any textbooks/websites/research papers/anything that y'all would recommend I read? Anything that in your opinion every epidemiologist/public health professional should have in their library? I'm open to both free and paid stuff (not too expensive though, I didn't have to buy any hundred dollar textbooks during undergrad and I'd like to keep that trend going )

I'm also open to just general novels/fun reading suggestions related to public health. I've so far read both "Inside the Outbreaks" by Mark Pendergrast and "Adventures of a Female Medical Detective" by Mary Guinan and thoroughly enjoyed them.

 

[wholeheartedly]

Hey everyone. I've been trying to do some leisure reading on epi and other public health related topics so I'll hopefully be sort of ahead/prepared for my epi mph in the fall.

Are there any textbooks/websites/research papers/anything that y'all would recommend I read? Anything that in your opinion every epidemiologist/public health professional should have in their library? I'm open to both free and paid stuff (not too expensive though, I didn't have to buy any hundred dollar textbooks during undergrad and I'd like to keep that trend going )

I'm also open to just general novels/fun reading suggestions related to public health. I've so far read both "Inside the Outbreaks" by Mark Pendergrast and "Adventures of a Female Medical Detective" by Mary Guinan and thoroughly enjoyed them.

Uh oh, you got me started on the epi/public health book recs...

Deadliest Enemy by Mike Osterholm- he's a prof at my school and I didn't get a chance to take classes with him so I go the book. Just started but so far so good

Outbreak Investigations Around the World- this is a textbook I bought for fun and is priced as a textbook. Do Not get the kindle version if you buy it as 80% of the tables/figures/images are blank with a msg saying "content removed due to copyright restrictions" which doesn't make sense given its a textbook and some of them are by the authors themselves. Despite lengthy calls to Amazon wasn't able to resolve this. So get a hard copy if you do. Was a really easy, enjoyable read for a textbook with interesting cases used to illustrate different Epi investigation strategies. Actually probably the only textbook I've read cover to cover.

Deadly Outbreaks-Alexandra Levitt. another good outbreak stories book. some case overlap between all the outbreak books, but still usually slightly different perspectives

Called for Life by Kent Brantley- this is by the doc from the US who got Ebola and was treated at Emory. great read from his perspective

fascinomas by Clifton Meader- Interesting med diagnosis cases
True Medical Detective Stories- same guy

Viruses Plagues and History- still working on this one, good so far

Woman with a worm in her head and other true stories of ID

Beating Back the Devil by Maryn McKenna- more outbreak stuff

No Time to Lose by Peter Piot- this is a good one about the journey of this physician scientists journey from doc/bench research to studying Ebola in the first outbreak to the AIDS epidemic to leading divisions in major organizations. Really delves into global health politics which I wasn't sure I'd like but did

There's plenty more where that came from, but I'll let others contribute. lol

I'd focus more on fun books going in and these all have good things to teach you

Biostatistics for Dummies is actually not a bad primer

I have like 4 epi textbooks and they all have strengths and weaknesses

My SAS instruction was a bit weak at first so in addition to the mandatory The Little SAS Book, I supplemented with SAS for Epidemiologists by Charles DiMaggio and liked how it frames things

 

[MazKanata]

This is a great list!

I would add:

The Wisdom of ******: Bureaucrats, Brothels and the Business of AIDS by Elizabeth Pisani.
Level 4: Virus Hunters of the CDC - Tracking Ebola and the World's Deadliest Viruses
The Origins of AIDS by Jacques Pepin

 

[MC_Spartan]

What a list! Here are some more. Mix of epi, significant people in public health, etc, with an obvious bias towards infectious diseases:

Yellow Fever Black Goddess by Christopher Wills
The Next Pandemic by Ali Khan
The Viral Storm by Nathan Wolfe
Pathologies of Power by Paul Farmer
Betrayal of Trust by Laurie Garrett
Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder

(hint: archive.org & openlibrary.org are solid resources for finding full texts for free)

 

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone! My reading list just doubled in size