1.

Relative risk

A son's odds of soon coughing foretold
by two brothers each down with a cold
as opposed to those less
Mom and sis would assess
from within their own rooms were they polled.

2.

Effect measure modification

When an effect varies significantly by class,
please stratify or your colleagues will be crass.
And yell, "The effect has heterogeneity!"
So you now use interaction terms with spontaneity.
But ARGH, more than one sure is a pain in the SAS...

3.

Statistical significance

Significance is easy to see
If your alpha is more than your p
It means your events
Would not be present
If the null's true and the sample's bias-free

4.

Statistical Significance

Pertaining to matters statistical,
Significance testing is critical.
For each explicandum,
Chance can’t be too random,
Or outcomes are prob’ly sophistical.

5.

Bias

When bad methodology’s bias
Skewed the link ‘tween pandemic and virus,
We tried to explain
How we’d misread the strain,
But this error will surely retire us.

6.

Intervention

Consider the term “intervention,”
The opposite of inattention:
In short, what you do
Once you’ve processed the clue,
While avoiding a show of pretension.

7.

IBS Disease

A woman with “ibs” can’t control  it;
She stays off her bed lest she soil it.
So to take all the guess
Out of gastric distress,
She spends all her days on the toilet.

8.

Health

My doc declared smoking is barred:
I should stop or my lungs will be scarred.
Then he said with a wheeze
"The solution's a breeze...
It’s just the commitment that's hard."

9.

Effect modification

Exposures have differential impacts in the presence of effect modification
A third variable produces dissimilar strengths of association
With outcomes that vary
Inference could get scary!
Unless you nix the overall estimate in favor of stratification.

10.

Bias

Bias is an often unavoidable terror
Systemically skewing estimates with error
Hidden, social, or from recall
It sends validity into free fall
If only like Poisson's tail end, it was rarer!

11.

Correlation

It could be a spurious association
Or is it a defined relation?
If the latter is true
vaccination might cause flu
But correlation is not causation

12.

Vaccination and Herd Immunity

We all are a part of a herd
Vaccines, they're the best, have you heard?
To protect all the weak
When the season hits peak
Get your shot, please, and don't be absurd!

13.

Influenza

There once was an outbreak of flu
The public cried "what should we do?"
A vaccine is the best
Then liquids and rest
And cover up when you "achoo"

14.

Bias

There once was an Epi from Utah
Whose study she knew had a true flaw
The errors, she knew
Caused her data to skew
So unadjusted results, they could fool ya

15.

Papa’s swan

“Sir, keep calm,.. give me the standard deviate
Cohen’s kappa and coefficient of determination
Chi-square distribution and measured random variation”
“Shucks Houston, no time here for Papa’s swan's postulate
The asteroid just passed the ISS, it’s the size of Empire State.”

16.

The Unusual Suspect: Confounding

Extra! Extra! Of coffee beware!
Causing a huge pancreas cancer scare!
But what of smoking cigs,
Often paired with java swigs?
The real culprit confounded, no fair!

17.

Untitled

When P values have shown you lubricity
You may suffer from heteroscedasticity
If your rho is too large
Say ‘GEE’ and take charge,
And that should restore your felicity!

18.

Epidemiology

There once was a Science called Epidemiology
Statistical results, they make no apology
The distribution and determinants
Ever changing, never permanent
Then followed the trends and looked to defend
All random outcomes through information bias

19.

Epidemic

It’s more than expected given the past
It’s rife, it’s grim, everyone’s aghast
The egg salad is to blame
Picnics won’t be the same
Let’s just hope this one ends fast

20.

Surveillance

Disease can spread fast and furious
Explanations are often times spurious
Surveillance in action
Can give us the traction
To find answers for those who are curious.

21.

Untitled

A world free of TB is our mission
It’s a disease that’s the worst of conditions
We won’t ever stop
Til we can shout from rooftops:
“No more need for Red Snapper physicians!”

22.

Untitled

We Epis are often called gumshoes
Tho’ cocktail parties will sometimes confuse
At the mention of skin
We just have to grin
And creepy rash diagnoses refuse.

23.
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BSE made him stop eating cheese
Steaks and burgers he gave up with ease
He thought eating this way
Kept infection at bay
But he died of mad cabbage disease

24.

Science for the novice

I had a passion for epidemiology
Counting the neighbours' cats meouws, kept me buzy
After meeting Schrodinger's cat
Made EPI-Info fruitbat
And my passion changed to astrology.

25.

Untitled

When evaluating sets of Mammography
Using x-ray data Photography,
A pair may be a healthy, and Ample Size
But it’s not what we mean by a large Sample Size—
‘cause >P is simply Pornography!

26.

Untitled

There once was a post-doc named Ian
Who found frequentist stats most plebeian.
His approach to statistics?
More probabilistic.
For Ian was truly Bayesian.

27.

Untitled

There once was a man with inflamed gums
Who dissed flossing the choppers with his chums
While he kept his teeth clean
He failed to get in between
And the plaque left in there made him glum

28.

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There once was a boy with dental caries
Because he mostly just ate confectionaries
Though not one to attack
He needed a new snack
Something to cause less tooth worries