The term was first introduced by virologist John R. Paul in his presidential address to the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 1938.
[3] When he coined the term "clinical epidemiology" in 1938, John R. Paul defined it as "a marriage between quantitative concepts used by epidemiologists to study disease in populations and decision-making in the individual case which is the daily fare of clinical medicine".
[4] According to Stephenson & Babiker (2000), "Clinical epidemiology can be defined as the investigation and control of the distribution and determinants of disease.
[6] In contrast, John M. Last felt that the term was an oxymoron, and that its increasing popularity in many different medical schools was a serious problem.
[citation needed] A key aspect of clinical epidemiology is the evaluation of the effectiveness of treatment and prevention medicines.