Version available on this site versus CRAN

About EpiTools.Net

Our mission is to make the numerical tools and methods of epidemiology freely available on the World Wide Web. Our primary target audience is public health epidemiologists and data analysts.

Using R, an open source programming language and environment for statistical computing and graphics, we provide, for free, numerial tools and programming solutions that have been used and tested in real-world epidemiologic applications. Here's why:

The Problem and Solution

Many practical problems in the analysis of public health data require programming or special software, and investigators in different locations may duplicate programming efforts done elsewhere. Often, simple analyses, such as the construction of confidence intervals, are not calculated and thereby complicate appropriate statistical inferences for small geographic areas. There are many examples of simple and useful numerical tools that would enhance the work of epidemiologists at local health departments and yet are not readily available for the problem in front of them (e.g., exact confidence intervals for low incidence rates, statistical pooling methods for meta-analysis, lifetime risk calculations, etc.). The availability of these tools will encourage wider use of appropriate methods and promote evidence-based public health practices.

Highlighted feature

Color Brewer tool

Did you know that 'epitools' implements the ColorBrewer method for helping select good color schemes for maps and other graphics? When selecting colors for graphics, the display of colors can represent sequential, qualitative, or diverging qualities. For example, if one wants to compare 9 levels using a sequential scheme, the follow R code:

> library(epitools)
> colorbrewer.display(9,"sequential")

will produce this plot to help in the selection of a color scheme:

For example, the 3-level sequential color schemes for the following epidemic curves were chosen using 'epitools'.

To learn more, install and experience the 'epitools' R package.

Send me feedback and suggestions. Thanks!

Tomás Aragón (aragon@berkeley.edu)