Table II.
Essential competencies of pharmacoepidemiology. Adapted from content in Jones et al.16
| Category | Items |
|---|---|
| Knowledge | |
| Pharmacovigilance | Definitions of adverse event vs adverse drug reaction Meaning/use of spontaneous reports in drug safety |
| Epidemiology | Basic epidemiology study designs and their usual hierarchy strengths, limitations, and selection of best designs |
| Prescription data | Types of data on drug use strengths and limitations of cross-sectional prescription data |
| Functional | |
| Epidemiology research methods | Design an epidemiology study of both an ad hoc and database type Ensure that the study designs incorporate good pharmacoepidemiology practices Describe methods of statistical analysis and controls for confounding and biases Describe limitations and methods to address these limitations Interpretation of results in the context of public health and regulatory decision making |
| Professional | |
| Communications | Communication of results of a pharmacoepidemiology study to a group of nonepidemiology scientists, placing the study and its design in context, explaining strengths and weakness, and options for interpretations and action |