ABSTRACT
There are concerted efforts currently to generate an improved epidemiological evidence base to understand the health issues raised by the brachycephalic crisis. This chapter begins by providing a comprehensive overview of the data sources and methods commonly used to report evidence on brachycephalic health. Caveats for safer interpretation of epidemiological results are highlighted. The reader is provided with summary results from many studies that are merged for the first time on relevant epidemiological topics such as disorder prevalence, breed predispositions, demography and longevity. This chapter emphasises the complexity of brachycephalic information but suggests that many issues are better considered at a breed level rather than an overall brachycephalic problem. As well as offering a wealth of epidemiological results, this chapter also aims to provide the reader with some core skills to better understand epidemiological results on brachycephalic health presented in this book and elsewhere.
