流行病学是研究疾病与人群关系的学科。与临床学和病理学一样,一种疾病的流行病学是该疾病基本描述不可缺少的部分。本文的目的是为初学者提供流行病学术语和方法的基础知识。这篇导言中将简单介绍某些流行病学方法的主要特征,特别是那些有别于大家所熟知的临床描述方法。 Epidemiology is a discipline that studies the relationship between disease and people. As with clinical science and pathology, the epidemiology of a disease is an indispensable part of the basic description of the disease. The purpose of this article is to provide beginners with basic knowledge of epidemiological terms and methods. This introduction will briefly describe the main features of some epidemiological methods, especially those that are different from the well-known clinical description methods.