[citation needed] Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of diseases and other health states in populations.
Epidemiological studies can be divided into two main types:[citation needed] Pharmacoepidemiology benefits from the methodology developed in general epidemiology and may further develop them for applications of methodology unique to needs of pharmacoepidemiology.
Pharmacovigilance is a type of continual monitoring of unwanted effects and other safety-related aspects of drugs that are already placed in current growing integrating markets.
[citation needed] In Australia, a 10% sample of all people eligible for government-subsidised medicines by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) are made available for research purposes.
Research outputs from these data have to be approved by Services Australia prior to publication.