This is the fourth of 10 lectures on toxicologic epidemiology. It has been prepared to expand on the brief discussion of the linkage between health risk assessment (RA) and epidemiology that was presented in Lecture 1. As mentioned in Lecture 3 on toxicology and RA, the close relationship between RA and epidemiology likewise cannot be fully disclosed in one or two lectures of this type. The documentation and literature on such a relationship is simply too much to appreciate. Accordingly, this lecture is necessarily compact, with the materials organized primarily for easy access by the novice.

The relationship between epidemiology and RA is essentially the same as discussed in the last lecture between toxicology and RA, at least in scope. As a matter of fact, if epidemiologic studies on health effects were ethical and as readily available as animal studies and in vitro assays are, there would be no need to provide the last lecture on toxicology and RA. Nor would there be a need to separate toxicologic experiment from human testing or clinical trials. The discussion in this lecture hence will be more focused and specific, at the expense of a broader, more general presentation already given in Lecture 3.

The titles of the 10 lectures are: (1) Toxicology and Epidemiology; (2) Public Health and Risk Assessment; (3) Toxicology and Risk Assessment; (4) Epidemiology and Risk Assessment; (5) Toxicologic Side of Epidemiology; (6) Epidemiologic Side of Toxicology; (7) Human Exposure Assessment I; (8) Human Exposure Assessment II; (9) Characterization of Health Risk; and (10) Toxicologic Epidemiology.