Epidemiological studies are of primary importance in a large developing country like ours where the natural history, incidence, prevalence and impact on morbidity and mortality of a variety of diseases are not known. It has usually been considered that epidemiology of infectious diseases is of prime importance in our country. However, the evolving pattern of change in the society with upward economic mobility and increasing number of middle classes would mean that a significant number of life style related diseases such as Ischaemic Heart Disease are increasing. There is very little information about this and it would be useful to undertake long term cohort studies in different population groups. Epidemiological studies are generally considered into two categories - observational and experimental.
Epidemiological studies cover research, programme evaluation and surveillance.
Scope of ethical guidelines for epidemiological studies is concerned with epidemiological research. Ethics in epidemiological studies is multidimensional covering clinical medicine, public health and the social millieau. Perhaps code of ethics is much better understood for clinical research, where the interaction between a patient and a clinical researcher is of supreme importance. In epidemiological research the researcher is dealing with group of individuals and the questions faced by an epidemiologist are more of professional nature. These questions would pertain to interactions with individual subjects, sources of funding or employer, fellow epidemiologist and the society at large.