Epidemiology

Question 1

What is fertility indices

Answer 1

Measures used to describe the reproductive characteristics of a population

Question 2

Dimension of descriptive epidemiology,-time

Answer 2

Considers when a disease occurs, how it’s changed or has changed over time
- Trends -secular I.e decades or years
- seasonal variation -cyclical pattern eg flu
-epidrmic curve
-point events (sudden emergence of a disease in a particular point in time)

Question 3

Dimension of descriptive epidemiology -place

Answer 3

Describes where the incidence is high or low and where it is changing or has changed
International (ecological comparisons may suggest hypothesis regarding causation)
National -compate urban/rural and patterns related to deprivation
Small area - comparisons based on census data, imd and town centre data

Question 4

Dimension of descriptive epidemiology -person

Answer 4

Describes who is affected, based on characteristics such as
Age, sex. Occupation, ethnicity, behaviour and lifestyle

Question 5

What is a relative risk of 1

Answer 5

Means that the incidence in the exposed group and the unexposed group is identical and there is no association observed between health outcome and risk exposure.

Question 6

measures of association quantify the relationship between exposure to potential risk factors and the occurrence of a disease.
What are the measures of association?

Answer 6

Odds ratio
Risk ratio
Rate ratio
Risk difference

Question 7

Measure of disease frequency

Answer 7

Point prevalence
Period prevalence
Incidence rate
Cumulative incidence

Question 8

Risk difference

Answer 8

This measure calculates the absolute difference in risk between the exposed and unexposed groups, indicating the excess risk attributable to the exposure. A positive risk difference suggests increased risk due to the exposure, while a negative value indicates a protective effect.

Question 9

Measure of disease severity

Answer 9

Case fatality
Disability adjusted life years
Quality adjusted life years
Mortality rate -crude, age specific, disease specific,
Incidence and prevalence
Severity indices
Hospitalisation rate
Duration of illness
Economic and social impact
Infectiousness
Reproductive number

Question 10

Survival rate

Answer 10

Proportion of survivors in a group studied and followed up over a period of time (often used in prognosis studies of cancer)
Probability of survival from that disease (e.g. if treated with a new drug) eg 5 year survival rate (5 year follow up)