Epidemiological Decision in Clinical decision making Flashcards
What is epidemiology?
It is the measure of the distribution of a ds or any physiological condition in a human population and the factors that affect this distribution
What is the lab? ==> The whole human population
What does morbidity mean?
It is a measure of the disease occurrence
- Incidence
- Prevalence
What is incidence?
The risk or probability of developing a certain disease in a certain time period
Prevalence
The burden of a ds in a population
So this is the proportion of the population with disease
What happens to the prevalence as the therapy for a certain ds improves, even if the incidence rates are constant?
It would still increase bc the death from that ds would decrease so even if the new cases are the same, the prevalence goes up
relation between prevalence and incidence
Prevalence = Incidence x duration of the ds
So if incidence is constant, prevalence will increase anw
Where can we get the information to calculate prevalence and incidence?
1) Public Health Surveillance
2) Health Surveys
3) Registries
What is public health surveillance
It is the fact that we have someone, usually physicians collecting the data and then reporting it to a center which does the calculation and for example sends it to a center who will evaluate it and see what can be changed and then that information has to finish the loop and go back to the person who collected the data in order for them to know how to work with it
What are the 2 kinds of surveillance?
1) Active: The organization that is in charge of calculating the incidence and prevalence actually sends someone to make the observation and to collect the data
PH authority goes into the location to get the info
should be done only for a specific period of time and for a certain purpose
This is specifically good in case where the ds has a social stigma like STD and the pt asks the physician not to report
2) Passive: relies of reports
This relies on standardized report form and are reported
This is the most common and requires the least energy but it is also the least specific and reliable bc reporting does not always happen
Sentinel vs Syndromic Surveillance
Sentinel: There is a prechosen sample sources, for example physicians or hospitals who are committed to report all cases of a certain ds
syndromic: focuses on early detection before the clinical or laboratory diagnosis has been made. ex: the absence from school
What are health surveys?
They are administered to the general population and helps in prevalence calculations
What are the registries?
These are list of people kept collected with a specific disease or exposure and can be later on used for epidemiological studies to calculate long-term health outcome of an exposure or risk factor for a disease
It is collected when a certain amount of people is exposed to a certain ds or for example when there is a registry for a certain disease when the healthcare providers are obliged to report
