Pharmacoepidemiology: Recent Findings and Challenges for Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology

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Pharmacoepidemiology is the study of drugs in large populations and typically applies descriptive and analytic epidemiologic methods to the study of the utilization, effectiveness, and safety of marketed medications. As a scientific field, pharmacoepidemiology has been advancing gradually since the 1980s with the rise of powerful computerized data management, statistical analysis, and population-based clinical questions.¹ Still, its role in assessing the benefits and risks of drug therapy for the treatment of mental disorders is minor.’ ‹