Pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacovigilance

Pharmacoepidemiology is a field of study that seeks to understand the beneficial and harmful effects of drug utilization in populations of people. The discipline is an amalgam of clinical pharmacology, clinical epidemiology, medical informatics, and biostatistics. Also, pharmacoepidemiology can include the misuse/abuse of pharmaceutical drugs or even the study of drugs taken outside of the health-care system, such as illicit drugs. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a broad overview of pharmacoepidemiology from multiple experts currently working in this field.