Exam 2

Question 1

Descriptive analysis

Answer 1

“to describe burden of disease or prevalence
of risk factors, health behaviors, or other characteristics
of a population that influences risk of disease” (CDC,
2015b).

Question 2

Analytical Analysis

Answer 2

usually concerned with
identifying or measuring the effects of risk
factors or is concerned with the health effects
of specific exposure(s)” (Last, 2001).
answers questions about why and how

Question 3

Clinical Trials

Answer 3

A research activity that involves the
administration of a test regimen to humans to
evaluate its efficacy and safety

Question 4

What are the characteristics of a Clinical trial?

Answer 4

Carefully designed and rigidly enforced
protocol
* Tightly controlled in terms of eligibility, delivery
of the intervention, and monitoring out
outcomes
* Duration ranges from days to years
* Participation is generally restricted to a highly
selected group of individuals.

Question 5

What are the outcomes of a Clinical Trial?

Answer 5

-Referred to as clinical end points
*May include rates of disease, death, or
recovery
*The outcome of interest is measured in the
intervention and control arms of the trial to
evaluate efficacy–these must be
measured in a comparable manner.

Question 6

Blinding

Answer 6

Helps to maintain the integrity of the study and reduce the potential of bias. Single and double.

Question 7

Cross sectional study

Answer 7

A research design that collects data from many different individuals at a single point in time. This allows you to measure the cause and the effect of the disease at the same point in time. You can simultaneously collect information on both the exposures and the outcomes.

Question 8

Controls/ Exposures

Answer 8

A sample of the source population that produced the cases

Question 9

Disease/ Cases

Answer 9

must be clearly defined. A person that has the disease.

Question 10

Retrospective study

Answer 10

Looks back in time to examine health events that have occurred.

Question 11

Prospective

Answer 11

Looks forward and examines future health outcomes

Question 12

Cohort study

Answer 12

-Allows a researcher to investigate the association between an exposure and an outcome or disease.
Allow for incidence to be determined
* Contribute to our understanding of cause and effect
* Collects primary data (i.e., data that the researcher collects him/herself)
Can calculate risk difference and risk ratio

Question 13

Case-Control

Answer 13

Usually used to study rare diseases or multiple exposures that could be related to a single outcome.
Compares the frequency of exposure among cases vs. controls. cannot estimate disease rates.

Question 14

matching

Answer 14

The process of making a study group and a comparison group comparable with respect to extraneous factors.

Question 15

purpose of epi studies?

Question 16

experimental vs observational

Answer 16

An experimental study (Clinical trails, randomized trials) has a research question involving prevention and treatment, feasible, money is available and a small effect is expected.
Observational (Cohort, case-control, cross-sectional) involves a question of prevention and treatment or a causal factor. Trial of it is not ethical, is infeasible, and would be too expensive.

Question 17

what is blinding in a clinical trial?

Answer 17

A way to protect the integrity of the study by preventing bias of who is receiving what treatment

Question 18

What is a disadvantage of a clinical trial?

Answer 18

It is an artificial setting, limited scope of potential impact, adhering to the protocols can be difficult, ethical dilemmas, expensive.

Question 19

Strengths and weaknesses of a cohort study?

Answer 19

Very time consuming to follow all the people, you need to be able to follow them for a long period of time, expensive, not good for rare diseases, or diseases with long latency periods. Loss to follow up can potentially decrease the validity.

strengths:
Clear temporal sequence, efficient for rare exposures, good information on exposures, confounders, especially, can study effects of exposure on multiple outcomes.

Question 20

strength and weaknesses of an experimental study?

Answer 20

not always ethical, can be expensive, lots of complicated protocols. You can determine causation.

Question 21

strength and weakness of a case control study?

Answer 21

Good for studying really rare diseases and can measure exposure related to multiple risks.

Weakness: we pick the population so there is no total population. Retrospective direction of inquiry.

Question 22

Cumulative incidence or risk

Answer 22

Can be calculated for Cohort Studies and case-control studies.

= # with the disease/ total population at risk

Question 23

Risk Ratio

Answer 23

=Cumulative incidence(exp)/ Cumulative incidence (unexp)