Meet the Professor Sessions

Cyrus Cooper (Southampton & Oxford, UK)

Epidemiological aspects of osteoporosis

Topics to be covered

• The principles of epidemiological study design
• The appropriate uses of cross-sectional, ecological, case-control, cohort and randomised controlled trial evidence
• The principal sources of bias in epidemiological studies (selection, ascertainment and confounding)
• The patterns of occurrence of major osteoporotic fractures in populations

Educational goals

After attending this Meet the Professor session, participants will be expected to:

• understand the principles of epidemiological study design and analysis
• have a grounding in the patterns of incidence of osteoporotic fractures by age, gender, geography and time
• understand the use of information on individual risk factors for the development of both population based and high risk preventive strategies

Target audience

• Clinically active health professionals
• Public health professionals

Teaching methods

• A mixture of didactic teaching and group discussion